Bodas de sangre

The main conflict of this work is the contradiction that the characters of the Bride and Leonardo live between the social mandate that falls on them and their personal desires. The Bride is going to marry the Groom, but doesn't seem to want to. She is unhappy and dissatisfied, and ends up fleeing in the middle of the wedding, causing the Groom and Leonardo to face death.

Why does the Bride marry if, in fact, she doesn't want to? The answer to this question is complex and has to do with social mandates. Every society has, in a more or less strict and more or less obvious way, a series of schemes and values that organize what is judged as "good" and "evil" according to the criteria of that society. The roles that each person occupies in that organization are influenced by that series of mandates, which assume what should be done and what should not be done.

So important to this work is the issue of social roles that, in fact, all but one of the characters are called by their role rather than a proper name: "Bride," "Groom," "Mother," "Mother," "Mother-in-law," "Maid," and so on.

This tension between desires and mandates is embodied in the characters of the Bride and Leonardo, who are the ones who decide to break up the wedding.

The social roles of the Bride are those of wife and daughter, in particular, of a family with a good economic pass. For these roles, the "right thing to do," the well-regarded thing, is to marry a "good party," that is, a man who also belongs to a wealthy family. On the contrary, for his role it is frowned upon to relate to a married man, as well as to have sex with anyone before marrying.

Leonardo, on the other hand, and according to what he said, does not have a good economic position. He is married, but expresses that he married another woman to forget about his feelings towards the Bride. Her role, then, is that of husband. The fact that he meets the Bride clandestinely goes against the social values that govern that role.

The theme of the opposition between personal desire and social mandates is expressed in the Bride trying to put aside her attraction to Leonardo and fulfill the role of bride and future wife, but her feelings end up making her break with that and escape.

In turn, Leonardo also gives in to his desire over the mandates that correspond to him, by looking for the Bride and finally fleeing with her. This choice of both, who end up following the force of their desire, implies a renunciation of their social roles. And it is this decision that produces the tragic outcome, which expresses, in a way, that going against the social mandate can cost honor and life itself.

Posed in this way, the work seems to pose the choices of these characters in a dichotomy: obey the mandate but live in unhappiness or obey personal desire and die (in the case of Leonardo) or live in dishonor (in the case of the Bride).