A comparative study on García Lorca’s drama Yerma and Gunasena Galappaththi’s Sri Lankan drama Mūdu Puththu

Author : K.Eranda

Abstract : The Sri Lankan drama Mūdu Puththu, which is a Sinhala language adaptation, was inspired by Yerma, a drama written by García Lorca. The purpose of this research is to identify the similarities and differences between both plays namely, Yerma and Mūdu Puththu in terms of themes, character portrayals, and artistic usage. The research methodology used in this study is the qualitative research method. The primary sources selected for this study were the script of Yerma written by García Lorca, the Sinhala drama Mūdu Puththu written by Gunasekara Galappaththi and Mahagama Sekara. Both Yerma and Mūdu Puththu showed similarity mainly in the central theme on which they were based on. According to the main theme, the common factor to both plays was the tragic story of a woman who desires deeply to have a child. However, the background settings of the two plays were different. Yerma was set against an agricultural rural lifestyle, while Mūdu Puththu was set within a fishing community. In Yerma, the reason the heroine cannot have a child was not due to any physical weakness of her husband. Lorca portrays the heroine as a woman tormented by her intense desire for barren. In Mūdu Puththu, however, the character Sārā cannot have a child because of her husbands’ physical weakness. The name Sārā itself carries a symbolic meaning related to sex. Yerma did not simply wish to become a mother by any means; rather, she wanted to bear a child through her husband and within marriage. But Sārā’s desire was primarily to become a mother by any means that possible. Yerma seeked blessings and supernatural help from mystical forces and rituals in order to have a child. S Sārā, on the other hand, seeked blessings from god of Kataragama in the hope of conceiving. Yerma’s husband Juan is more concerned with sexual satisfaction rather than having a child. As a result, Yerma eventually strangled him to death. In Mūdu Puththu, Sārā couldn’t conceive a child from her husband Thegiris, so she bears a child by Diyonis, who is Thegiris’s brother. As a consequence, her husband later killed the child by strangulating. In Yerma, Lorca mainly used dialogue-driven dramatic narration, while in Mūdu Puththu, Galappaththi employed a mixed language style combining prose and poetry. Thus, in both plays the dramatists successfully shape their themes in accordance with their own social, economic, and political environments.

Keywords : Yerma, Mūdu Puththu, Lorca, Galappaththi, Drama

Conference Name : International Conference on Contemporary Fiction and Literary Innovation (ICCFLI-26)

Conference Place : Barcelona, Spain

Conference Date : 17th Sep 2026