Zorro

Diego’s dearest friend is Bernardo, the nonmarital son of an Indigenous convert named Ana. Diego and Bernardo grow up together, almost like brothers. In many ways, Bernardo is defined by his relationship with Diego: He functions almost as Diego’s sidekick. When he and Diego undergo their initiation rites with White Owl, Bernardo has a vision of a horse and believes “that he should develop the horse’s virtues: loyalty, strength, and endurance” (76). Bernardo accompanies Diego during many of his adventures and misadventures, and he later even joins Diego as a second Zorro. Bernardo becomes the eternal ally of his friend, his shadow; appropriately, he is literally voiceless, for he stops speaking after witnessing his mother’s death. Bernardo is so devoted to his friend that he even names his son Diego.

Though Bernardo shares and supports many of Diego’s values—his courage, his love of justice, an adventurous nature—Bernardo is in some ways Diego’s antithesis. Bernardo exhibits a patience and restraint that Diego is never able to master. When the two boys are in school, Diego learns to be more patient and focused by helping the more studious Bernardo learn his lessons. Bernardo is also more settled than Diego. Bernardo, for instance, marries his sweetheart Light-in-the-Night and has a son with her while Diego is still hopelessly chasing Juliana de Romeu. The level-headed Bernardo serves to balance the passionate Diego.

Rafael Moncada is the main antagonist of the novel. He is a foil to Diego, cowardly where Diego is brave, deceitful where Diego is honest, corrupt where Diego is just. Moncada belongs to the highest echelons of Spanish society, coming from an important and wealthy family. He has no scruples about exploiting his privileged position and is thus able to rapidly advance his career.

Though on the surface the handsome Moncada is confident and even charming, his true character is deeply unsympathetic. He freely resorts to deceit in trying to win the love of Juliana de Romeu, and he ultimately even assaults Juliana when she persists in refusing him. The privileged Moncada becomes obsessive when he finds something he cannot have, so he still pursues Juliana even though she repeatedly rebuffs him. Accustomed to having his way, Moncada quickly loses his nerve when the tides turn against him, humiliating himself, for instance, during his duel with Diego. Moncada is also greedy and cruel. When he comes to California, he uses slave labor to start an illegal pearl trade. In fighting Moncada, Diego acquires a clearer understanding of what he represents, so that in a way it is true, as the narrator remarks, that “Zorro was fortunate to have a rival like Rafael Moncada” (168).

Diego’s mother, Toypurnia (“Daughter-of-Wolf”), later baptized under the Christian name Regina, is a challenging presence in Diego’s life; because she comprises part of Diego’s dual heritage, she represents the complexity of his identity. Toypurnia was brought up by her Shoshone mother, White Owl, and even leads an Indigenous uprising against the Spanish settlers before she is defeated, captured, and baptized. Even though she adopts European customs and marries Alejandro de la Vega, Toypurnia never completely abandons her Indigenous roots, and she ultimately returns to her Shoshone village when Diego goes to Spain. Though much of the narrative refers to her as Regina, she thinks of Toypurnia as her true name. Likewise, though Diego presents as an aristocrat, he is forever forsaking that privilege to connect with “lower” classes and to embrace his Shoshone heritage.

Toypurnia is every inch the warrior. The beginning of the novel presents her as the leader of an Indigenous insurrection. She nearly dies on a few occasions, including during her labor with Diego and when pirates raid the de la Vega hacienda. Her battles, however, take a toll on her. After the pirate raid, her husband Alejandro finds that “[t]he experience of having peered into the far side of death had erased her freshness with a single stroke” (68). Even so, Toypurnia always behaves with dignity and courage, and never shows fear.

Toypurnia’s relationship with her husband Alejandro de la Vega is complex. Though the two love each other, Alejandro’s unbending belief in the superiority of his culture—and Toypurnia’s inability to completely embrace Spanish ways—puts a strain on their relationship. Toypurnia is loving to her son Diego and does everything in her power to give him a good life, literally fighting to protect him when the hacienda is attacked by pirates; yet she is also firm and is not easily deceived by the mischievous Diego. She secretly teaches Diego many Indigenous values and customs that form an important part of the man he becomes.

Diego’s father, Alejandro de la Vega, is an aristocratic military man who becomes a wealthy landowner. He prides himself on being “an exemplary Catholic hidalgo” (35) and exhibits very traditional Spanish values throughout his life. Though he marries a Shoshone woman and does not mistreat Indigenous people, Alejandro never doubts the superiority of his own ancestry and culture.

Alejandro is serious and hardworking. A dashing and strong soldier, he sees himself as a man of honor. When in positions of power, he takes care to be just. Despite his inflexible nature, Alejandro deeply loves his family and takes much care to ensure that his son Diego receives a proper education. Though Diego himself comes to challenge many of his father’s old-fashioned ideas, many of Alejandro’s personal traits—including his sense of honor, his justice, and his bravery—clearly influence Diego’s personal formation.

White Owl is Diego’s Shoshone grandmother. A shaman and healer, she is a spiritual and almost mystical figure. She makes her first appearance in the novel to help Toypurnia regain her health after she almost dies giving birth to her son, arriving at the de la Vega hacienda “out of nowhere and without being summoned” (31). As Diego grows up, the wise and laconic White Owl becomes his and Bernardo’s spiritual mentor, instructing them in the values of the Indigenous people and leading them through their initiation rites.

Throughout the novel, White Owl proves a central figure in guiding Diego along his path. It is she who introduces him to the sacred Indigenous caves and teaches him about okahué. In her firm but gentle way, White Owl helps Diego understand what kind of man he is to become. She explains to him the significance of the fox, zorro, as his spirit guide, and she is later one of the first people to learn of Diego’s secret identity as Zorro.

Isabel de Romeu, the younger de Romeu daughter, is a close friend of Diego and Bernardo who is revealed in the Epilogue to have been the narrator of the story. Isabel is characterized as far more physically ordinary, especially in comparison with her older sister. She is “of a rather peppery nature” (114) and can be blunt and even rude, though she also has a good heart. Isabel is juxtaposed with her more refined sister, who has more remarkable beauty, more musical skill, and a gentler nature. But Isabel is far more spirited and adventurous than Juliana. She becomes very close with Bernardo, meets the Romani, and develops some skill with the sword. She eventually even joins Diego and Bernardo as a third Zorro.

In some ways, Isabel is the antithesis of the romantic characters who populate her story. Though she admits in the Epilogue that she has always loved Diego, she also insists that she “[does] not suffer because of it” (389), and she refuses to let it impair her judgment. Instead, Isabel prefers to keep a more level head, in romantic matters as in other aspects of her life, and emerges by the end of the novel as the patient and meticulous chronicler who in a sense had been behind Diego’s story the whole time.

Diego’s love interest for most of the novel, Juliana de Romeu is the oldest daughter of Tomás de Romeu. Though it is Juliana’s beauty that wins her many admirers, she is also “cultivated, virtuous, and sentimental” (114), and she plays the harp with haunting skill. However, she is also kind-hearted, gentle, and extremely charitable; even when held hostage by pirates, Juliana prefers to use the jewels she has smuggled with her to free a shipment of enslaved Africans rather than to purchase her own freedom. Juliana’s virtue is at times expressed as an almost childlike naivety, and she seems somewhat out of place beside such figures as her adventurous friend Agnès Duchamp, her bold sister Isabel, or the seductive Creole women she encounters in the Americas.

Juliana is romantic to a fault. Though kind, she can be fickle. She is unmoved by either Diego or Moncada, and repeatedly shoots down their advances (though she treats both of them kindly). Juliana, “waiting for the hero from her books, courageous and tragic, who would rescue her from everyday boredom” (174), falls in love with the pirate Jean Lafitte as soon as she sets eyes on him. Juliana changes dramatically, casting aside her softspoken and demure persona as she becomes flirtatious and seductive. When her sister goes to California with Diego, Juliana stays with Lafitte, choosing a completely different life.

The resolute and just Padre Mendoza exemplifies the potential for productive coexistence between California’s Spanish and Indigenous inhabitants. Introduced as an “energetic and commanding” (5) Franciscan friar, Mendoza sees it as his responsibility to care for the Indigenous people under his charge. But though Mendoza takes great care to transform his mission into “a model of prosperity and justice” (11), he still does not question the superiority of European customs and the Christian religion to the ways of the Indigenous people.

Mendoza plays an important role in Diego’s upbringing. He helps to educate Diego (and Bernardo) and represents one of Diego’s models for justice and fairness. Diego, like Mendoza, will come to view himself as a protector of the oppressed, though he will of course pursue his vocation in a very different way. Mendoza is a courageous man who continues to fight for what he believes in even when he is older and when times are difficult. When Moncada comes to California, Mendoza opposes him virtually on his own. Even when Moncada almost ruins Mendoza, Mendoza’s first thought is always to his mission and his responsibility to the Indigenous converts.

Eulalia de Callís is the imposing wife—and later widow—of Pedro Fages, the governor of California before Diego was born. The beautiful young Spanish aristocrat has a passionate and volatile relationship with her husband, and she is extremely strong-willed and has a head for business, building a chocolate empire after Fages’ death. But Eulalia also has a weakness for protecting those who are in need: Indeed, it is Eulalia who takes Toypurnia under her wing when she is captured by Alejandro de la Vega, and, much later, it is Eulalia who funds the de Romeu daughters’ escape from Spain.

Eulalia is an ambivalent character. She is capable of remarkable kindness and generosity, but ultimately she represents the inherent problems with the traditional aristocracy. She looks down on those whom she perceives as below her station and does not hesitate to exploit her wealth and aristocratic birth to augment her own power. In Eulalia’s hands, this power accomplishes both good and bad things, but it becomes even more problematic in the hands of Eulalia’s nephew, the villainous Moncada.

Manuel Escalante, a fencing maestro, is first introduced by his fencing treatise, which is enthusiastically used by the young Diego. When Diego arrives in Spain, he studies under Escalante himself. Diego first sees Escalante as a “disagreeable, meticulous, spruce” (119), yet he is excited to study fencing with the undeniable expert, and he quickly learns a great deal from him.

Diego gradually comes to learn that he was misled in his impression of Escalante, and when the two become better acquainted Escalante even offers Diego membership in the secret society La Justicia. Diego realizes that there is another side to Escalante’s character and that his true obsession is justice. Escalante, in fact, becomes the unconscious model for Diego, who also develops a kind of dual identity and places the pursuit of justice at the center of his life.

Tomás de Romeu is an old acquaintance of Alejandro de la Vega who takes in the young Diego when he comes to study in Spain. De Romeu comes across as aristocratic and proud but is an extremely generous and fatherly man who loves his daughters dearly and treats Diego like part of his family. Diego eventually discovers that de Romeu is “neither as noble nor as rich” (118) as his lavish habits suggest, having come from humble origins and possessing little talent for making money.

De Romeu sympathizes with the French and is even on friendly terms with the French official Roland “Le Chevalier” Duchamp. But though de Romeu embraces the modern, liberal ideas espoused by the French, he himself is in many ways quite old-fashioned. He is surprised, for instance, by Diego’s relationship with the Indigenous Bernardo, and Diego is very careful to conceal some of his activities—such as his acquaintance with the Romani—from de Romeu. De Romeu does little to hide his controversial views, and this ultimately leads to his arrest and execution when the Spanish king is restored to power.

Nuria is the diligent and devoted, if sometimes histrionic and overemotional, chaperone of the de Romeu sisters. She is very religious and takes her position in the de Romeu household seriously. She is highly protective of the virtue of the sisters and, though strict, obviously loves them dearly. She is at first suspicious of Diego but soon succumbs to his charms. Nuria stays with the de Romeu sisters after their father’s downfall and even accompanies them to California (though not exactly without complaining).

Based on a historical figure, Jean Lafitte is the dashing pirate who captures Diego, Nuria, and the de Romeu sisters during their voyage to California. Despite his occupation, Jean is a dashing figure and treats his prisoners with dignity and respect as they await their ransom; Diego marvels at the “contrast between the man’s evil reputation and his refined behavior” (286). Lafitte is a capable leader and presents himself as a man of business first and foremost, though there are contradictions in his character, and in one remarkable scene, Lafitte even frees an entire shipment of enslaved Africans without payment to demonstrate his affection for Juliana.

Meeting Lafitte has an important effect on Diego. On one level, Lafitte is Diego’s rival, and Diego is devastated when Juliana, his first love interest, falls in love with and marries Lafitte. But Diego is also impressed by Lafitte’s honor as well as his sense of showmanship, and Lafitte’s flashy outfit inspires Diego to modify his Zorro costume.

A traditional character in the Zorro canon, Lolita Pulida was first created by Johnston McCulley in his 1919 novel The Curse of Capistrano. Lolita is the cousin of the cruel Carlos Alcázar, who grows up with Diego and Bernardo and later partners with Moncada in his illegal pearl trade. Lolita becomes Diego’s love interest in the final part of the novel, having been hopelessly infatuated with him when the two were children. Lolita is described as “a saint” (331) who does everything in her power to help the prisoners abused by her cousin Carlos, and she helps Zorro free the prisoners from El Diablo. In the Epilogue, the narrator reveals that Diego and Lolita were eventually married but that Lolita died in a tragic accident only a few years later.

Amalia is a Romani woman who befriends Bernardo and Diego. Having lost her beloved husband in a violent brawl, Amalia is a tragic figure who “had resigned herself to being alone forever” (151). She begins a sexual relationship with Diego, recognizing the hopelessness of his infatuation with Juliana and hoping to give him some relief. Though she is generally devoted to the Romani, Amalia is willing to break certain taboos when doing so is the only way to help her friends.