Psychological Effects from Blood Wedding Essay Example

barely three years. Then your brother. Oh, is it right - how can it be - that a small thing like a knife or a pistol can finish off a man - a bull of a man? No, I’ll never be quiet. The months pass and the hopelessness of it stings in my eyes and even to the roots of my hair (Lorca 35).

Thus, the mother is undoubtedly severely damaged by the death of her son and her husband, even at the beginning of the play. The pain as experienced by a mother, who has lost her husband and her son, is an everlasting one; there always seems to be a chasm in her heart. This type of stress and anxiety can lead to serious psychological trouble. This is evidently true in the case of the Mother. It appears that she may have several psychological disturbances. This is reinforced when the Mother states, “I’ll put up with it, but I don’t forgive” (Lorca 64).

Hence, there are several psychological problems lingering within the Mother, even before the death of the Bridegroom. Then, at the end of the play, the Mother’s psychological trouble only gets worse with the death of her last son, the Bridegroom. She states: My son ought to answer me. But now my son is an armful of shriveled flowers. My son is a fading voice beyond the mountains now... Your tears are only tears from your eyes, but when I’m alone mine will come - from the soles of my feet, from my roots - burning more than blood... We have terrible days ahead. I want to see no one. The earth and

I. My grief and I. And these four walls.

Ay-y-y! Ay-y-y! (Lorca 96). Therefore, at the end of the play, the Mother is psychologically and emotionally damaged beyond any possible repair. She speaks of seclusion to solve her problems, and the overwhelming grief that she is facing. Losing a child is one of the most stressful and psychologically harmful events that could possible happen to a person. The sorrow, fury, melancholia, and other intense emotions associated with death, all cause psychological and emotional damage. The traumatizing experience of losing a loved one is immeasurable and infinite. Thus, the Mother is experiencing this grief threefold of what it would normally be.

Since the almost life-threatening levels of stress are associated with the death of only one loved one, the Mother must indeed be experiencing crippling and debilitating amounts of uncontrollable stress, raw emotion, and troubling thoughts. This kind of tragic and traumatizing event is what causes Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This kind of intense stress that the Mother is undergoing at the end of the play, is equivalent to someone who has fought in a war, someone who has been shot or has had a close call with death, or someone who has experienced and extremely traumatizing experience.

If these problems with stress persist for over two months, then the Mother will be officially diagnosed as having PTSD. Other possible psychological disorders that could effect the Mother are Dissociative disorders, Anxiety Disorders, and Psychotic Disorders. In Dissociative Disorders, the patient has experienced an extremely traumatizing event that causes them to have amnesia, fugue, and even develop a multiple personality disorder. In Anxiety Disorders, the patient experiences a crippling amount

of anxiety, which disrupts their daily activities. In a Psychotic Disorder, the patient experiences delusions and hallucinations of varying types.

Thus, there are several possible psychological disorders that the Mother could be experiencing. However, any way a person looks at it, the Mother is in need of psychotherapy. Her motivations may focus on suicide, reliving the deaths of her loved ones, and trying to find answers. Her dreams and social life may even be disrupted by disturbing anxieties, phobias, fears, impulses, and desires. During psychotherapy, the Mother would be able to talk out all of the psychological problems that she is experiencing, and may even be able to come to terms with what has happened. Medication is also a possible treatment.

Medication could range from anti-depressants to anti-anxiety drugs. Thus, the Mother at the end of Lorca’s Blood Wedding is experiencing extreme and intricate psychological disruptions. Finally, one can also observe the psychological turmoil in Blood Wedding through the character of the Bride. The Bride has not lived an easy life either. She says, “Haven’t I done a man’s work? I wish I were” (Lorca 53). Thus, the Bride reveals to the reader / audience that she has not had a simple and carefree life. She also expresses her desire to be a man, as if it would serve as an alternative that would satisfy her true desires.

However, the Bride’s true quandary is that she is still in love with the man to whom she was previously engaged. This man is Leonardo. Even though they were once engaged, Leonardo decided to marry the Bride’s cousin instead of the Bride. This intense rejection and denial may have put

the Bride in a defensive mode, where she feels that she will get hurt if she opens up to any other guys. However, in reality, she decides to marry the Bridegroom because she feels that it will rid her of her desires for Leonardo, and make her forget about all of her unhappiness and uneasiness. However, she is sadly mistaken.

Once she marries the Bridegroom, she makes a rash decision and takes off with Leonardo on his horse. However, the Bridegroom hunts the couple down, and a battle ensues between Leonardo and the Bridegroom. At the end of the play, both Leonardo and the Bridegroom are dead, murdered in fatal duel. Thus, the Bride at the end of Blood Wedding has been stripped of both of the men to whom she felt the closest. This intense loss is comparable, but not equal to, the mother’s losses. The Bride’s grief and psychological turmoil are evident at the end of the play. She states: I came here so she’d kill me and they’d take me away with them.

But not with her hands; with grappling hooks, with a sickle - and with force - until they break on my bones. Let her! I want her to know I’m clean, that I may be crazy, but that they can bury me without a single man ever having seen himself in the whiteness of my breasts ... You would have gone, too. I was a woman burning with desire, full of sores inside and out, and your son was a little bit of water from which I hoped for children, land, health; but the other one was a dark river, choked

with brush, that brought near me the undertone of its rushes and its whispered song.

And I went along with your son who was like a little boy of cold water - and the other sent against me hundreds of birds who got in my way and left white frost on my wounds, my wounds of poor withered woman, of a girl caressed by fire. I didn’t want to; remember that! I didn’t want to. Your son was my destiny and I have not betrayed him, but the other one’s arm dragged me along like the pull of the sea, like the head toss of a mule, and he would have dragged me always, always, always - even if I were an old woman and all your son’s son held my by the hair!... Take your revenge on me, here I am!

See how soft my throat is; it would be less work for you than cutting a dahlia in your garden ... Let me weep with you” (Lorca 96-7). Therefore, the Bride was caught in a dilemma of which man to choose. Instead of having a choice, she lost both. Also, her repeated cries for death and to be murdered express her intense grief and suicidal nature. She may also be experiencing PTSD like the mother. The extreme traumatizing experience of death is one that can catapult a person into a psychological nightmare. This nightmare may become an irresistible and inescapable impulse to commit suicide.

Thus, in the Bride’s unique situation, she is more intensely suicidal than the Mother. This may cause the Bride to develop a manic-depressive disorder (Bipolar disorder) which may cause her to have

violent mood swings. Specifically, one can presume that she may develop Bipolar II disorder. This is where there are extremely long periods of depression and melancholia, accompanied by very few, but intense and severe episodes of mania and happiness that are called hypomanic events.

The anxiety associated with death could also cause the Bride to develop an Anxiety Disorder, possibly with agoraphobia, which s a fear to go out into public, and thus, favoring seclusion and solitude. Either way, the situations of the Mother and the Bride are extremely similar, and yet subtly different. This may cause the two women to develop psychopathological disorders that are either extremely similar, or slightly different. Thus, one can observe the psychological disturbances in Blood Wedding through the character of the Bride. In essence, it is a shame that the Mother and the Bride must endure such sorrowful experiences, and deal with such traumatizing and debilitating potential psychological disorders.

However, the drama of Lorca’s Blood Wedding is vividly real, and could happen to anyone. Life has its ups and downs. All one can do is try to keep life in a positive perspective, accept things, and move on. This is captured in Omar Khayyam’s poem “Wisdom of the Ages. ” The poem states, “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it” (www. polly. me. uk 1). Thus, to sum it up with two cliches: ‘It’s all good’ and ‘Life goes on. ’