Elizabeth Alvarenga

English 2850

Unraveling Society through Deception

What is the meaning of life? The answers to this question are endless, but one thing is for sure: life is not always an easy road and obstacles may come in the way like tumbling rocks. Financial problems and extreme hunger are some obstacles that drive people to make dishonest and immoral decisions in order to counteract these hardships. In The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by an anonymous author, and Life of a Sensous Woman by Ihara Saikaku, the main protagonists: Lazarillo and the aging woman, are presented with hardships, which forces them to become tricksters in order to survive. Tricksters are people who cheat or deceive others in order to accomplish a goal. The boy and the aging woman are tricksters that use their cunning intelligence  as a way of obtaining food and escaping difficult situations in order to survive and ultimately, becoming heroes of their time. Regardless of their actions, these two protagonists become heroes for they serve as insiders that give readers a glimpse of a hypocrite and cynical society in which they live in.

Lazarillo de Tomes goes through life with hardships, which include mental abuse, denial and extreme poverty. He is left with no choice but to develop survival instincts and apply them to deviate cunning acts as a way of obtaining food and ultimately surviving. While at the hands of the Priest, his second master, he is denied from a life’s necessity: food. The priest gives him mere crumbs out of all the food he has. Lazarillo is left with no choice but to deceive the priest in order to survive but it doesn’t take him long to notice that something is not right. That does not stop Lazarillo from stealing the bread and tricks the priest into believing that mice and a snake are responsible for the missing food: “He was so strung up and jumpy with all this that he never seemed to doze off, and consequently the so-called snake never dared to approach the chest at night to do any nibbling. But I took to raiding in the daytime, while he was in the church out in the town. When he discovered the damage and realized that his efforts had had no effect at all, he spent the night prowling around like a ghost”(Unknown 50). After the priest keeps an extra eye on the bread, Lazarillo does not dare to get near it at night, but always has another plan up his sleeve. Lazarillo is a trickster that is only focused on surviving at any cost in a greedy and cynical society. The priest comes off as greedy and unscrupulous, which is a representation of the Catholic Church. Despite Lazarillo’s dishonest decisions, he becomes a hero of his time in the sense that he reveals realistic depictions of life in Spain during the 1500’s through his masters. Each master speaks out an unpleasant side of society, mainly the Catholic Church. The Pardoner is another one of Lazarillo’s masters that reflect corruption and deception within the church. Lazarillo becomes a trickster in order to survive, while at the same time revealing a hypocrite society.

The aging woman, however, recalls her life as an adventure full of hardships, as well as, pleasurable. Aside from using her cunning acts, she also uses her physical beauty as a way of obtaining a pleasurable life style and surviving in a Japanese society. At some point in her life, the aging woman accepts to be the“temporary” wife of a priest in exchange of money, but soon becomes disinterested  and afraid for her future and devises a cunning act in order to escape. The aging woman tricks the “celebus” priest into believing that she is pregnant and says:

“I was completely shaken. I knew I had no business being in that temple a minute longer. Finally I devised a method of escape that impressed even me. I stuffed a lot of cotton wadding between the outer and inner layers in the front part of my robe. That made me look quite heavy. Then I went to see the head priest.- I haven’t told you until now but I’m several months pregnant. I’m not sure exactly when, but the baby could come any time now” (Saikaku 602). The aging woman is a trickster that goes through different positions in order to survive and get sexual pleasures. In her search for survival and erotic affairs, the aging woman becomes a hero of her time as she reveals a Japanese society in the 1600’s as hypocritical and superficial. Through her jobs, the protagonists reveals a society that only values physical beauty who strives to live from sexual pleasure. The protagonist’s numerous jobs also give her the opportunity to unravel the lives of ministers, priests, and merchants who hide behind a façade of respect and morality. The aging woman uses her beauty and cunning acts in order to overcome hardships and seek pleasurable affairs.

Similarly, Lazarillo and the aging woman are tricksters who are confronted with difficult situations where dishonesty is no longer a choice but, a necessity to survive. Both characters make mistakes throughout their journeys who eventually become heroes as they serve as insiders of two cynical and hypocrite societies. Lazarillo and the aging woman reveal meaningless societies that are focused on the superficial aspects of life: riches and beauty. The protagonists also criticizes people’s greediness and their means of obtaining their desires. In their case, Lazarillo and the aging woman are not born into tricksters but are shaped this way by society and eventually adapt in order to survive. In spite of their immoral behaviors, the protagonists becomes heroes as they unmask a society of illusions and reveal their true colors.

Life is like a continuous battle where one has to do whatever it takes to survive. Lazarillo and the aging woman are heroes for various reasons. They not only survive in a cynical society and reveal their true colors, but they also convey a powerful message within their life stories. They struggle throughout their lives but they also grow to be wise individuals, which has appereantly been lost within their societies. These protagonists grow more connected to the world and to themselves and see life with a different perspective as opposed to the rest, which are more oriented in riches and sexual pleasures that they have lost the real meaning of life. There is more to life than mere riches, sexual pleasures and false appearances. These physical attributes that people so often desire are temporary and eventually fade with time. Lazarillo and the aging woman do not only force their readers to question the societies in which they live in, but also the meaning of life.