Carmen: Who Is She?

Carmen ranks number one on my list of favorite operas.  What attracts me to this particular opera, however, is not just the music; it's the way the titular gypsy girl operates.  She is a very highly dangerous woman, but at the same time she is utterly fascinating.  Who is this character? 

Carmen is a fiery gypsy girl who prefers six-month-long dalliances with men rather than a committed relationship.  And she is part of a band of criminal smugglers.  When we first meet her, she is working a temp job in a cigarette factory (she can only be working a temp job there because she never stays in one place for long).  She seduces Don Jose who leaves the army to join her, and then she leaves him for the bullfighter, Escamillo.  Jose (who by that point is crazy obsessed with Carmen), tries to plead with her, but she will hear none of it, and so he kills her.  

But why does Carmen do the things she does?  There has got to be a reason.  And with that in mind and after listening to various mezzo-sopranos talking about the character (not to mention numerous discussions with my parents), I have come up with a plausible explanation.  

First off, Carmen is a gypsy and because of that she is poor.  She has spent pretty much her whole life wandering all over Spain because she has no real place to settle down, and she appears to have become accustomed to this nomadic lifestyle.  In fact, she revels in it.  She makes this very clear to Don Jose when she first seduces him, then reiterates it during their final confrontation at the end of the opera.  And secondly, she knows full well that there are men who are perfectly willing to use her for their own gain.  So she believes that if she calls all the shots in a relationship, then she's home safe.  It never occurs to her in 65 million years That someone would actually what to spend his life with her.  Which brings me to my third point, which is that Carmen is so used to the unscrupulous men that she hangs out with, she does not gain full understanding of why Don Jose is behaving jealously.  In fact, that kind of jealousy in alien to her.  While it's true that Don Jose is really in love with an idea of Carmen rather than with Carmen herself, his passion is something Carmen isn't used to.  And she learns the hard way not to seduce men who are used to good and honest women like Micaela.  

I think that explains a thing or two about the character.