Acceso usuarios
Mercedes Alcalá Galán
In Cervantes¿s two great novels, Don Quixote and Persiles y Sigismunda, the female protagonists Dulcinea and Sigismunda double with their alter egos, Aldonza Lorenzo and Auristela. Despite obvious differences, in both cases Cervantes resorts to the creation of doubles that fragment these female characters and make them more complex from the viewpoint of other characters and readers alike. In Persiles the construction of the character Auristela/Sigismunda goes far beyond the given double identity. This character is portrayed pictorially many times throughout her journey. The painted image of Auristela provokes more incidents than she herself does, such that the portraits of her act as autonomous shadows that continuously follow her, precede her, and intercept her path. Through analysis of six different portraits, we see how Cervantes explores the idea of the sublime by means of the contruction of the character Auristela.
