Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

two ways. On the one hand, the phrase is taken literally, indicating that Leocadia
and the sergeant benefit from each other and thereby implying what Goya also
thinks, namely that his mistress is in league with the sergeant. On the other hand,
Se aprovechan is also used as a mirror of the rape and the raiding of the house,
pointing to the equivalence of violence during the War of Independence against
France (1808-1814) and the reign of terror under Fernando VII (and, by
extension, perhaps also that of Franco during Buero’s career).
The next phrase, the most repeated one in this dialog, Y son fieras (And
they are like wild animals, Plate 5), quotes one of many Desastres images which
represent “[t]he bravery of women in the defense of their home territory” (Hughes
288). But again, Buero’s use of it in this scene points to an ambiguity produced by
a disjuncture between the image and the caption. A depiction of women “hurling
themselves in Medea-like fury on the invaders with whatever weapons came to
hand” (ibid.), its quotation in this dialog underscores the threat of women to men.
Thus pointing to Goya’s fear that Leocadia is responsible for bringing the
intruders into the house, this quotation also visualizes a woman’s retaliation and
revenge and Goya’s view of his mistress as an actively provoking participant in
the aggression, rather than its passive, suffering victim.
Paradoxically then, Buero’s Goya is identifying with the French soldiers
of the etching, that is, with the enemy and aggressor, rather than the victim. This
contradiction again emphasizes Buero’s portrayal of the artist’s inability to
harmonize with and find himself in his works, and points to Goya’s personal and
artistic conflicts in addition to his political one. Here, he is depicted as at odds
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