God as one that is purely opportunistic in asking for relief from suffering. Lazarillo moves from master to master, taking with him the tricks they teach in order to ascend to a higher social position.
Firstly, the book is divided into episodic adventures in order to draw this parallel (The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes). Lazarillo occupies various jobs with each master, including an apprenticeship to a blind man, making his own money as a seller of water and wine, and as a town crier (13-80). With each subsequent service, Lazarillo manages to ascend up the social ladder. To him, each master it treated as a step upwards on this ladder that leads to higher societal importance. In order to scale this, however, Lazarillo must reproduce the tricks that he has learned from his masters. For instance, Lazarillo learned from the prideful squire, who “was of a good appearance, well dressed, and walked with an air of ease and consequence”, that he could use his physical appearance to portray an outward expression of being well-off (41). He used this skill, or rather vice, in order to find himself a better job later. Lazarillo employed this trick when he quit serving the chaplain because he was able to save money to look “like a man of some note” (73). He “was enabled to buy a doublet of old fustian, a large coat with trimmed sleeves, and a cloak lined with silk” (73). Lazarillo
quit because he sees himself dressed honorably, even though he is still a low class citizen. His ornate, descriptive language of the clothing places an emphasis on the importance of using appearance to deceive others. Overall, he treats his masters’ authority as a prospective vice he can use later as a tool to enhance his own opportunities in society. He finally ends his adventures as a town crier wherein he “succeeded in the office so well…that almost all matters relating to it are known to go through (his) hands” (75). He is satisfied with his lot in life in despite of the vices he used to get there. This exemplifies how Lazarillo confuses power and economic stability for success. However, the reader cannot blame him because at this point it has become clear that this attitude has become a cultural norm that Lazarillo conformed to in order to survive. The interactions Lazarillo has with each master, and his hypocrisy in adopting all the traits he despises in them, calls to attention how unfairly society rewards the deceptive with economic stability. Lazarillo’s interactions with each of his masters, particularly those that represent religious authority, also serve to emphasize the privilege and corruption that have become rooted in the center of his culture. Five of the seven masters come from a position of religious significance, and each master represents one of the deadly sins, so it is clear that the author intended to make a point about religion as a corrupt institution. For example, the second master is a gluttonous priest that Lazarillo refers to as a “contemtable wretch”, “curmudgeon”, “wretched master”, “cruel”, “snake-killer”, and “bastard” (25-39). This language is not of a variety typically used to describe a priest. Lazarillo continues to express an acute distrust of the people that head religious positions throughout the novel. This skepticism grows when he encounters a master that sells false indulgences to the locals using trickery. Lazarillo immediately describes him as “one of the most impudent and barefaced, yet cleverest rogues” that he had ever seen (66). He also sarcastically calls the pardoner a “devout commissary of his holiness” (69). Lazarillo emphasizes this contrast in order to create a link between the pardoner’s claims to serve God with his use of deceit to get people to purchase indulgences. Lazarillo is thus able to draw attention to how the pardoner possesses an immense amount of religious influence, and how he uses that influence to his advantage. He creates a façade for himself that disguises an interest in making money as worship of God. Lazarillo comes to serve a wide collection of people that hold religious positions, and in every instance they defy our expectations of what they should represent. This reinforces the satire-like portrayal of religion and religious officials as part of a corrupt institution in the middle of a corrupt society. Although Lazarillo becomes jaded to the fraudulent religious institution, he has a slightly different relationship with God himself, which reflects what he thinks of the world. In one of Lazarillos speeches about his starvation, he attests that “such was my extreme suffering, as to make me think that the Lord, compassionating my unhappy and languishing condition, visited some with death to give me life” (29). Explicitly, Lazarillo is explaining that the death of others leaves more food for himself to be able to live off of. It is evident, then, that his relationship with God is based more upon physical survival than moral guidance. Lazarillo treats God more so as a divine power that can dispel either fortune or misfortune. Lazarillo later continues to remark that he saw the face of God in the chest of Eucharist bread, and that the tinkerer who made it possible for him to get into the chest possessed a likeness of an angel (27-30). Again, Lazarillo expresses here that the bread only brings him closer to God in the sense that it has the potential to separate him from life on Earth and death. It has no moral significance behind it; it is supposed to represent the body of Christ that will save him spiritually, but to Lazarillo it is only a means of keeping his physical body alive. This portrayal of God’s role as delivering fortune or misfortune that is experienced by the protagonist helps shape his world view. It reflects the world he lives in to be a very harsh, unforgiving, and unrelenting world wherein the deceiving, corrupt officials are rewarded unproportionately. Although Lazarillo’s interactions with each of his masters exemplifies the flawed nature of the social hierarchy and organized religion, it is important to keep in mind that the narration is narrow and only seen through the first person. Through this, Lazarillo is able to skew the events, or even pick and choose which ones to share. Although this makes the narrator untrustworthy, it is also used as a tool to further emphasize the importance of his experiences. It places his own experiences at the forefront, and demonstrates how a person from humble upbringings manages to navigate the corrupt system successfully, by his definition. Lazarillo’s economic stability makes him powerful, but he is also ignorant to the fact that he adopted the selfish, greedy, egotistic, hypocritical mannerisms of all of his previous masters. However, such is the case for a person in his circumstances. This novel presents us with a harsh realism about the world Lazarillo lived in wherein there are only two outcomes- adopt the corruption at the center of society in order to help yourself ascend the corrupt hierarchy or succumb to the pressures facing those at the bottom.