Passion is the instrument for self extinction - Blood Wedding by Lorca

In the play Blood Wedding, Lorca has presented human beings trapped in the webs of their own passion. John Gassner has mentioned that “Lorca‘s most impressive dramas deal with people who are seized by elemental passions which conflict with custom, reason, or some other restraining force”2. In this play the passion which stems from the heart of man has been dramatized as a tragedy. From the beginning of the play, the element of passion is present in the dialogue as well as the imagery of the play. The Bride follows the dictates of her passion for Leonardo. This passion is an expression of her self, as it is obvious that no one else in the play is consumed by this passion for Leonardo. Self is actually a set of traits, which make the Bride a unique person in her own right. It is that which contains her desires, her wishes and her fears. When the Bride tries to attain satisfaction for her desires and wants, it means that she is asserting herself as an individual. The self of a person yearns for expression and to be displayed as an entity, which demands fulfillment for its own passions and desires. When the Bride tries to satisfy her passion, she ends up annihilating that very self she was supposed to have satisfied with that passion. This force of passion seems to make two sorts of contacts, inwards and outwards. Inward contact means the force of passion coming in contact with the self of the Bride, from where it originated. Outward contact means the force of passion coming in contact with the external circumstances in which the Bride exists, namely, society. To both of these, the self as well as the society, passion is a force of anarchy. Society is the government of order imposed upon a group where as passion is a chaotic force by virtue of its individuality. Society is a system devoted to the survival of the group. This survival is possible only if the individual can be ordered and checked, with a certain standard of behaviour imposed upon him. A person does not