Carmen

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the novella’s racist and inaccurate portrayal of Romani people and culture, which includes racist slurs. The novella also includes other instances of racism and exoticism, as well as depictions of domestic violence against women cumulating in murder.

A recurring motif throughout the novella is the poverty described in the rooms and lodgings owned by Roma. Their sparseness, uncleanliness, and general poor condition represent the widespread poverty suffered by Roma in Spain, as well as Prosper Mérimée’s racist and unsubstantiated claims about Roma’s general lack of cleanliness as a race. For example, the narrator and Don José stay at the inn Venta del Cuervo, a sparsely furnished cottage run by a young girl and old woman. In lieu of beds, they have only bedbug-infested mule blankets on the floor, and a single curtain to separate the proprietors from their guests. The rooms to which Carmen takes Don José in Seville are similarly lacking in luxury, as is the Roma lodging in Vosges described by the narrator in Chapter 4. This low standard of living contrasts with the excessive luxury of the rooms owned by the Englishman who Carmen seduces in Gibraltar, highlighting the extent of wealth disparities in society at the time.