Love and Obsession Theme Analysis

Set in eighteenth-century Lima, Peru, The Bridge of San Luis Rey examines the lives of several characters who die suddenly in a bridge collapse. While the characters live disparate lives and seem to have little in common, many are similar in their obsessive love for a person or an idea. Love is often portrayed as a highly positive emotion, but the novel argues that such feelings can easily lead to obsessive, selfish, and destructive behavior. While some characters, notably Uncle Pio, believe that unbridled passion is necessary for a deeper understanding of the world and oneself, the novel argues that there is a clear difference between obsession, which involves a projection of one’s own desires onto the beloved, and love, which is a disinterested desire for the beloved’s well-being and happiness. It’s only by learning to distinguish these emotions, and cultivating their more altruistic feelings, that most characters are able to attain personal tranquility and form meaningful connections with others.

Most of the novel’s characters experience a form of obsessive love—whether it’s romantic, platonic, or ideological—that blinds them to the flaws of their beloved and reflects a certain selfishness in their own behavior. The most obvious example of this pattern is Doña María, who is obsessed with her daughter, Doña Clara. Doña María’s love makes her a bad judge of character—she’s unable to see that her daughter is a vapid and pretentious social climber. Moreover, her constant fixation on her daughter prevents her from finding satisfaction in anything else and turns her into a prematurely aged eccentric, a laughingstock throughout Lima’s high society. Doña Maria believes her love is well-intentioned, but the novel views it as a desire to control her daughter by persuading or forcing her to reciprocate the same strong emotions.

After seeing Camila Perichole perform in the theater, Manuel, a young orphan and scribe, becomes obsessed with the actress, idolizing her even though she feels such ardor only towards her own beauty and talent, and despite the fact that she repeatedly uses him to write letters to her other lovers. Meanwhile, his twin brother, Esteban, feels the same excessive devotion towards Manuel. Unable to imagine life without his brother, Esteban falls into a deep depression during his brother’s infatuation with the Perichole and later, after Manuel’s early death due to infection, almost commits suicide.

Uncle Pio and the Abbess are obsessively devoted to Spanish drama and charitable works, respectively. Their obsessions lead them to develop problematic relationships with their protégés. Uncle Pio, for instance, molds the Perichole into a great actress and acts as her father figure, but fails to give her the moral guidance she needs to function in the world offstage. Similarly, the Abbess decides that Pepita, a young orphan, is the only person smart and selfless enough to eventually take over the charitable institutions she currently superintends, but in order to prepare the girl for this role, she puts her through harsh trials and prevents her from enjoying a normal childhood.

Even though these experiences of passionate love are a projection of the characters’ own desires rather than genuine a consideration of another’s, they drive most of the novel’s creative endeavors and spurs its creates accomplishments. By putting so much effort into cultivating the Perichole’s talent, Uncle Pio makes a great contribution to Limean culture, allowing citizens of this far-flung colony to experience what he regards as the greatest dramas of all time. Similarly—and perhaps more importantly—the Abbess’s single-minded devotion to her work among the poor allows her to alleviate the suffering she sees around her, despite the general indifference of the city’s wealthy elite. Meanwhile, as he watches the Perichole go through slews of lovers without becoming attached to any of them, Uncle Pio worries that without experiencing total and passionate love, his protégé will never fully access her formidable talent. In his mind, the Perichole’s career is limited by her lack of obsessive love.

Even Doña Maria, in trying to gain her daughter’s favor, channels her own frenetic energy into writing her witty and engaging letters that chronicle and satirize Limean high society. These letters eventually become an acclaimed part of the literary canon, allowing Doña María to transcend her own weakness and obsession and create a beautiful and meaningful work of literature.

However, it’s only by tempering these feelings that some characters eventually achieve tranquility and form deeper and more selfless relationships with others. When she learns of her daughter’s pregnancy, Doña María is thrown into a frenzy of worry for Doña Clara’s health. Just before her death, she makes a pilgrimage to pray for her daughter’s safe delivery; in the church, she has an epiphany realizes both that she can’t influence what happens to Doña Clara by praying and that she must “learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.” While Doña María dies before she can change her behavior towards her daughter, this episode hints that by learning to control her obsession, she might become a better mother.

Although Esteban’s experience of losing his twin twice—first to his passion for the Perichole and then to death from infection—is deeply traumatic, it forces him to examine his own life and, for the first time, develop an identity that is separate from his connection to his brother. By the time he dies in the bridge collapse, Esteban has grappled with and rejected the temptation to commit suicide. Learning to think for himself even though “it had always been Manuel who had made the decisions,” he is well on the way to becoming an independent man.

After Pepita dies, the Abbess learns to live with the fact that her charitable organizations might collapse after her own death. This realization allows her to find satisfaction in the work she’s doing in the moment, rather than constantly worrying about its future. By the end of the novel, the Abbess has achieved a state of tranquility that allows her to act as a spiritual counselor to others who are bereaved by deaths in the bridge collapse, rather than wallowing in her own grief.

While the novel’s depictions of fervent love form some of its most vivid and engaging moments, it insists that, in order to live meaningful lives, characters must examine even their feelings that initially seem positive, rather than blindly following their dictates. Many characters, from the eccentric Doña María to the wise and generous Abbess, eventually realize that their strong passions lead to essentially selfless behavior; by cultivating instead their more selfless impulses, these characters are able to enjoy better relationships with those around them and be more at peace with themselves.