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

azón and his own involvement in and responsibility for the social and political
reality: “Ya no soy más que un viejecico engullesopas. Un anciano al borde del
sepulcro […] Un país al borde del sepulcro…cuya razón sueña…” (211). 140 Here,
finally, he extends his identification with his works to one with his country and
admits to his own “sleep of reason.” His paintings, imbued with a life of their
own, have taught him about “the ability of the creative act to free man from moral
blindness” (Ridley 108).
To Goya’s reflection, a male voice in the air, heard only by the protagonist
and the spectators, responds with another quote from the Caprichos: “Si amanece,
nos vamos” (Capricho 71; “If it dawns, we will go away”), which represents
various old, ugly, witch-like women (identified in the Ayala and Biblioteca
Nacional manuscripts as “alcahuetas,” “go-betweens”) at a meeting in the middle
of the night. This quote is repeated by various male and female voices throughout
the rest of the play, increasingly loud until the drama ends when, in the middle of
that deafening noise the light goes out, and an enlarged projection of the
Aquelarre (The Witches’ Sabbath) is seen in the background. Buero uses this
quote as an answer to the enactment of the Sueño de la razón, representing
Goya’s realization that the return of the light of reason (both within himself and in
his country) will make the monstrous creatures disappear. Thus, the enactment of
the Sueño de la razón clearly has a cathartic function for the painter and
protagonist of the play, leading to his (personal and political) awakening of reason
140 “I am no more than a soup-ladling old man. An old man at the edge of the grave. […] A
country at the edge of the grave…whose reason sleeps…” (my transl.) – Marion Peter Holt
translates the first sentence here as “I’m just a feeble old man” (61), again deleting the allusion to
Goya’s Viejos comiendo sopas.
107