V - ¡Hijo de mi alma! – Gender Inversion and the Metaphysical Reproduction of the Self in Yerma

Summary

A woman frustrated? Theme, plot and structure

In El público, ambiguity and confusion characterise the discussion of its themes and structures; opinion focuses on its putative ‘impossibility’. Running through the work are modulating dialectics that generate tensions between the physical and the metaphysical, interactions amid the representations of illusion and reality, and mediations between the organising poles of binary gender. In Yerma, these oppositional forces re-emerge, to enact the tragedy of a woman who fails to achieve the same transcendence of material love that we have witnessed Jesús, Mariana, Perlimplín and Hombre 1 pursuing. If the themes and structure of El público are reputedly ‘impossible’ to classify, the alleged impossibility in Yerma lies in the central character's inability to have a child. Any analysis of Yerma comes singularly focused on discussing the difficulties Yerma faces to become a mother.

In Yerma, the narrative revolves relentlessly around the eponymous protagonist. As a brief prologue to the drama, the play opens with Yerma alone on stage, asleep, and dreaming. In her dream, a shepherd appears leading a small boy dressed in white; they fix Yerma with their gaze. Back in the waking world, the setting for the first scene is the house where Yerma lives with her husband Juan. We are introduced to the couple and their conjugal life, with Juan, a peasant with land and sheep, and Yerma, a wife who fills the gaps in her domestic duties with needlework and brooding over not yet having a child. After Juan leaves for his daily labours, Yerma is visited by her friend and neighbour María. The visit is a bittersweet one for Yerma. María comes with the news that she is pregnant, setting Yerma's sorrow at her own childlessness in sharp relief. The following scene takes place out of doors. Yerma is returning from the olive groves where Juan is working, having taken her husband his meal. The path home brings her a series of encounters. First she meets an old woman who, Yerma fancies, might help her understand why she does not have a child. The woman astonishes Yerma with her open and carefree sexuality, as well us her unconventional, earthy approach to the affairs of this world and the next.