Yerma (i.e., "Barren" in
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
) is a play by the
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
dramatist
Federico García LorcaFederico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War by persons likely affiliated with the Nationalist cause...
. It was written in
1934The year 1934 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published.*Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky are among those present at the first Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers....
, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a
tragicTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
poem."
The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime. This desperation is produced by the social norms of her culture, and the work functions as a critique of those norms. Living in a society of women who have children with their husbands as part of a ritual, this hurts Yerma even more.
Yerma kills her husband in the end because he is a frugal, economically driven man who has no desire to have children.
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Yerma (i.e., "Barren" in
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
) is a play by the
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
dramatist
Federico García LorcaFederico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War by persons likely affiliated with the Nationalist cause...
. It was written in
1934The year 1934 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published.*Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky are among those present at the first Congress of the Soviet Union of Writers....
, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a
tragicTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
poem."
Plot
The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime. This desperation is produced by the social norms of her culture, and the work functions as a critique of those norms. Living in a society of women who have children with their husbands as part of a ritual, this hurts Yerma even more.
Yerma kills her husband in the end because he is a frugal, economically driven man who has no desire to have children. For him, children are a costly transaction. The ending where she kills him is ironic however because she kills him at "Ermita" which is a religious place with the possibility of fertility.
Themes
Yerma deals with the themes of isolation, passion and frustration, but also the underlying theme of nature, marriage, jealousy and friendship. Social conventions of the period also play a large part in the play's plot.
Legacy
Ian Gibson suggests that of all of Lorca's writings, Yerma is the one most directly associated with his assassination in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, because it most blatantly challenges the doctrines of Catholicism and morality of Spanish society.
Paul BowlesPaul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
composed an opera based on Yerma in 1955. Pilar Távora directed a noteworthy film version of the Lorca play in Spanish starring Aitana Sánchez Gijón in 2001. Her adaptation is marred, however, by its elimination of all ambiguity from the conclusion: to make the play more absolutely feminist, she portrays the husband as attempting to rape Yerma, rather than having the provocation for Yerma's inexplicable act of violence be his first true expression of affection for her as it is in the play.
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