Marriage Of Figaro Passions

In The Marriage of Figaro, Beaumarchais brings to the stage issues of obligation and passion in the form of a theatrical bedroom farce. He calls to light both the reason and passion which is responsible for tying man to physical things through obligation and the complications that arise from these actions. These are obligations which man finds himself incapable to attend to due to the unreliable, fluctuating worth of the objects that drive the fleeting passions of man. The cast of characters and their pursuits illustrate how passion without reason drives these farcical events. The farcical aspects serve to provide exaggerated, theatrical representations of the real world enslavement to passion that possesses man. The objects of passion over which the characters in Beaumarchais' play pursue is women, and the ownership exhibited over them. Beaumarchais also looks to illuminate the ways which these women perceive the power that is given, and simultaneously revoked, with desirability. Beaumarchais writes of the roles involved with passion and possession, the subject and the object, when all roles are individually ruled by their own passions, passions which can never align with the obligations unique to that individual. He divides the subjects and objects of passion by gender and the shackles of obligation are ruled by social class. Men act while women, wishing they could act, are acted upon, and servants must obey their lord and all must obey the contracts governed by law.
Obligation and passion are incapable of performing a balancing act because personal passion will always hold more weight than obligation. Furthermore, obligations arising from passion will always be unsustainable because things which obtain their worth through desirability have no way to ensure that their ability to stir passion will last. The very thing