Lieutenant Nun

“There, I holed up for three days, planning and re-planning and cutting myself out a suit of clothes. With the blue woolen bodice I had I made a pair of breeches, and with the green petticoat I wore underneath, a double and a hose—my nun’s habit was useless and I thew it away.”

Catalina de Erauso changing her nun’s clothes into masculine ones is the main inciting incident of the book, introducing the theme of Personal Identity Versus Societal Roles. With this change of her outward appearance, Erauso began on the path of adventure that defines the rest of the book. This act is thus symbolically important, as her change in clothes led to entirely new horizons and a new social identity.

“I settled on a price with the man and left the next day, with no better idea of where to go, or what to do, than let myself be carried off like a feather in the wind.”

Erauso’s lack of definitive purpose during her travels is a continuing feature in the book. She rarely gave insights into her motivations throughout the period described, but from quotes such as this and her general description of the time, it can be understood that she had no “end goal” in mind. Rather, she appears to have been trying to avoid new restrictions on her freedom or to make money. This adds an important element to her characterization and her desire for Freedom and Adventure in the Colonial World.

“Finally one night, she locked me in and declared that come hell or high water I was going to sleep with her—pushing and pleading so much that I had to smack her one and slip out of there.”

Erauso’s avoidance of Doña Beatriz de Cárdenas’s sexual advances invokes common comic conventions in the literature of the time around cross-dressing characters, especially the need to avoid exposure through sexual entanglement. The incident also reveals her occasionally dismissive attitudes toward other women.