The Bridge of San Luis Rey: The Conflict Between the Marquesa and Dona Clara Examined

In The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder the Marquesa and her daughter Dona Clara have a conflict of love. This conflict stems from long standing issues from Donna Clara's youth and into her married life dealing with her over protective mother. The conflict is simply that the Marquesa thinks she truly and deeply loves her daughter but her love is only a passion. Dona Clara thinks that she hates her mother because she believed that she did not fit her station and was to over protective. The conflict between Mother and daughter which began in the daughter's youth and went into her married life is resolved because the Marquesa witnesses true love and changes from a love of passion for her daughter to one of compassion; this also sparks the daughter's transformation from passionate hate to compassionate love.

The conflict between Donna Clara and the Marquesa begins in Donna Clara's youth. The Marquesa did not have a pleasant childhood and was persecuted by her mother. This left an impression upon the Marquesa whereby she would never castigate her daughter only give her an idolatrous love. Donna Clara hated her mother's meekness and her fawning love because she took after her father who was cold and intellectual. The first chance Donna Clara got she accepted a marriage offer for the farthest place she could go, Spain. There she thought she would be safe from her mother's passionate love.

After Donna Clara married and moved away she thought she would be safe from her mother's love but she was wrong, the Marquesa initiated an even more furious attempt at showing her love and trying to gain her daughter's. The Marquesa began to write beautiful letters to her daughter in an attempt to show her civility and class to her daughter and thus win her approval. Donna Clara saw behind the mask that the Marquesa constructed and loathed her all the more for her falsity. Donna Clara would be nothing more than civil to her mother and only at her husband's request that she do so. Donna Clara had never been shown any real love from the Marquesa and so she hated her passionately.

The end of the conflict was finally brought about by a catalyst in the form of Pepita, the Marquesa's companion from the abbey. The Marquesa sees Pepita writing a letter to the Abbess that raised Pepita. In the letter the Marquesa finally glimpse real love. This letter without the beautiful falsities of her own letters changes the heart of the Marquesa who immediately decides to reform her love for her daughter and thus completing the Marquesa's change from passion for her daughter to compassion. The Marquesa immediately sets about writing a letter of real love for her daughter. Donna Clara receives this letter of true love after her mother's death and has a change of heart because she finally receives the true love she always wanted from her mother. Her feelings for her mother change from passionate hate to compassionate love in the end.

In the end the conflict between the Marquesa and her daughter Donna Clara, beginning in the childhood and extending into married life of the latter, is brought to a climax by an outside catalyst and is resolved in a manner that both the Marquesa and Donna Clara have a compassionate love for the other. The overprotective idolatrous love of the Marquesa in Dona Clara's early life began the hateful conflict. The false but beautiful letters of the Marquesa foster the hate of the daughter and nurture the passionate love of the mother. Only when the Marquesa witnesses true love can does she change her ways and love her daughter truly, this love is returned by the daughter when she sees her mother's true feelings. One should always be truthful in their feelings so as to foster a true compassionate love and not the false love of passion.