The The Dark Side of Matriarchy: Control, Repression, and Tragedy in The House of Bernarda Alba: A Psychoanalytical Study of Motherhood in Lorca's Rural Spain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62843/jssr.v5i3.563Keywords:
Matriarchy, Repression, Female Authority, TragedyAbstract
This study examines Lorca's portrayal of motherhood and rural household as an epitome of matriarchal control, a suffocating household and the contagious nature of oppression within a family structure. The central character, Bernarda, exudes the image of hierarchical power which engulfs the freedom of her own daughters in the house, notwithstanding her mother and servants. This attitude of hers brings the family to a tragically heightened stage where the youngest commits suicide and the elder ones live like the dead. This research accentuates the nature of power in both ways; as an active force in the form of Bernarda's dictatorial behavior and as a passive force that has overcast the whole house making the girls no more than puppets in the hands of their irrational despotic mother. Drawing on Jungian theory, this research argues matriarchy can be destructive when rooted in patriarchal values, harming women themselves. The paper does not limit the study to the text of the play as a specimen of the destructive nature of the mother figure, but also includes the feminist strains, cultural implications and the behavioural and psychological patterns of certain characters in specific situations in order to highlight and elaborate on the selected character of Bernarda Alba from multiple critical viewpoints. The paper provides an extensive study of Bernarda Alba's character and household not only as the darker side of the mother figure and female destructive powers but also the household as a politically charged sphere of power, control and repression which ultimately brings forth the tragic confrontations and Adeila's suicide.
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