"JASPERINO: ... I heard your bride's voice in the room next to me;
And lending more attention, found De Flores
Louder than she.
ALSEMERO: De Flores? Thou art out now.
JASPERINO: You'll tell me more anon.
ALSEMERO: Still I'll prevent thee.
The very sight of him is poison to her.
JASPERINO: That made me stagger too, but Diaphanta
At her return confirmed it.
ALSEMERO: Diaphanta!
JASPERINO: Then fell we both to listen, and words passed
Like those that challenge interest in a woman."
(IV.ii.95-103)
This exchange reminds me of act 2 in which Tomazo tells Alonzo that Beatrice is two-timing him and Alonzo refuses to believe him. In the excerpt quoted above, Jasperino tells Alsemero that he overheard Beatrice and De Flores having sex, yet he refuses to believe him. I think this displays the huge power that Beatrice possesses over her men (Alonzo, De Flores, Alsemero), which in return now truly makes me doubt her innocence. At this point we know that Beatrice and De Flores are having sex, but we don't really know for how long this has been happening. What we do know based on what Jasperino told Alsemero is that they were both basically "loud" and I am assuming that this loudness is attributed to pleasure, meaning that they were both enjoying the act equally. This definitely makes me think that Beatrice was in no way forced at this point, otherwise Jasperino would have surely heard her screaming for help or something. I don't want to say that Beatrice was into De Flores from the start and wanted to hump him right off the bat, but I do feel that at this point she is merely living out some kind of weird fantasy by De Flores's side. Even when Alsemero tries to set her up by making her drink whatever drink they have prepared that is apparently supposed to have some kind of effect on virgins, Beatrice realizes that it is a set up and already knows the effects of it somehow. Obviously she is trying to pull the innocent card, but it seems that she is also getting a kick out of the stupified state that she has Alsemero in. In the beginning she seemed to have everything together, but now it seems that she is really unstable. Whichever the case, I really don't think she was innocent at any point in this and knew quite well that De Flores was into her. She used this to her advantage thinking that she could manipulate the situation to get what she wanted, but in the end, she really just dug a hole for herself and she is caught in the middle of a messy situation that she was not expecting...or was she? Also, is she still genuinely interested in Alsemero, or is she merely using him to cover up everything that she has been doing with De Flores?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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