The Anxiety of Gender: The Tranformation of Tamar in Tirso's La venganza de Tamar and Calderón's Los cabellos de Absalón

Abstract

In the Biblical narrative (2 Samuel), Tamar vanishes after her rape by her half-brother Absalom. Her disappearance from the theater of action ensures the preservation of her characterization as innocent victim. In the dramatic versions of Tirso and Calderón (who adopted Tirso's final act as his own second act), Tamar's continued stage presence effects a transformation from wronged maiden to aggressive avenger. The effect is not celebratory, but negative. Freud's essays on the Taboo of Virginity and Medusa's Head afford us insight into the "logic""of the playwrights' deviant readings and renditions of the source. The plot (the Davidic Succession Narrative) tells the story of a crisis in masculinity, and concomitant destabilization of the body politic. The projection on stage of a fantasized, phallic female—terrifying, but at the same time reassuring—provides a mechanism for mastering, or at least assuaging, anxiety. The distortions in Tamar's characterization correspond to the period's preoccupation with power—or rather its loss: it was commonly perceived that one of the first somatic signs of a state's weakening was the blurring of gender distinctions. A crisis of political power reveals itself in a radical anxiety about gender.