An Analysis of the Blood Wedding by Garcia Lorca.

An Analysis of the Blood Wedding by Garcia Lorca.

Introduction and summary

Blood Wedding is a famous play by Federico Garcia Lorca which was completed in 1932 but premiered in Madrid in 1933. The play is a combination of non-realistic and non-naturalistic features that involve the use of songs, chants, music, poetry and rhythm. The author divides the play into three acts with three scenes in each part to format the literary work for the continuous effect, dramatic climax and the final impact. The first part includes the setting of the play as in the farm homes of the groom and Leonardo. The author also introduces the audience to the characters while explaining their circumstances to develop the plot of the play. Act two takes place in the bride’s cavern where the bride takes off from the wedding, and elope with Leonardo as the man she loves. Act III is the final part which is full of pain and grief. It happens in the dark forest, and the eventual event is the death of Leonardo and the Bridegroom. The act evokes emotional despair; describing three women who lose the most important persons in their lives and are now living in despair.

Life and author’s work

Federico was the eldest son in a family of four. His father was a farmer, and the mother was a teacher. Born on June 5, 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, near the city of Granada, he grew to become a Spanish poet and playwright (p2). However, his career spanned for nineteen years having revitalized and resurrected the most basic strains of Spanish poetry and theatre. At the age of ten, the family moved to Granada, where Lorca enrolled in the University of Granada to study liberal arts and law (p2). He published his first collection in 1918, which wetted his desire for more literary works.

As a young man, Federico Garcia Lorca was passionate about music. He loved playing piano and writing and had a higher concentration in cultural activity in the University of Madrid, where he made friends in the film and art industry such as Luis Bunuel and Painter Salvador Dali. The author wrote his first play; the Butterfly’s evil spell in 1919, which was composed in verse. The work, however, faced criticism and only ran for four shows. In the 1920s, Garcia Lorca became associated with Spain’s Avant-garde scene, publishing both poetry and plays, including Gypsy Ballads, his most famous poetry collection, which came out in 1928 (p2).

After a brief stint in New York City in 1929, the author returned to Spain during Prime de Rivera’s dictatorial rule. He began touring as an actor and director of the theatre troupe that brought plays to rural communities throughout the country. It was during the same period that he wrote three plays now known as the rural trilogy. It included The House of Bernarda Alba, Yerma, and the Blood Wedding (p2). In the end, he was branded a socialist and was assassinated for his socialist’s beliefs. However, the author spent most of his life in the rural neighborhood, and is largely about life in Andalusia, a theme he explored throughout his career.   Federico’s life span in the industry can be said to be short but was and full. He travelled a lot, received admiration from any and wrote great deals which were feted.

Aesthetic ideas of the author

Aesthetics in literature is the use of the various artistic elements or expressions alongside heightened texts to strengthen the purpose of writing and drive the intended message to the audience. Based on his background in arts, Federico Garcia Lorca has the spirit of including other art forms to advocate for a total theatre. It involves the integration of the various disciplines into a cohesive performance piece. As a result, his combination of songs, dance and poetry shows the equal importance of the voices and the texts to tell stories and perceive the world in a more acute vision. For instance, in the Blood wedding, he uses songs/choruses, dance during the wedding, and mask work to tell the love story in the oppressive society. In act II, the chorus appears in different forms to include the woodcutters chorus, the little girls, the servant, and the neighbours are among the choruses used by the author to serve the purpose of alerting the audience and inciting action. (p28). There is also the fusion of poetry and drama which enhances and intensifies the dramatic action.

Themes of the author and the works he has done

The author centers his ideas around the theme of death as an inevitable part of human’s life that must be accepted. It does kill not only the physical body but also the emotional bond or connection that makes people human. Lorca develops it throughout the plot from the mother, who constantly lament the death of her loved ones and has to endure the pain. She had lost her husband and a son due to violence. She has to endure the emotional and psychological punishment. Again, the plot ends with a death scene, between Leonardo and the Bridegroom. Besides, in the plot, the beggar woman constantly brings the idea of death. The author portrays death as an enemy that does not only end life but breaks the beautiful connection that people hold.

Similarly, the theme of love and passion emerges strongly in the Blood Wedding as the force that keeps the Bride and Leonardo together despite their circumstances. Federico Garcia Lorca scrutinizes the nature of love and how passionate romance can affect a person’s control over life decisions. The pairing of the Bride and Leonardo is one that should bring happiness and satisfaction to both partners. It is the true love and compassion that they have for each other that keeps them together despite having being married to different partners. It is because of the love that the bride has for the Leonardo that forces her to leave the wedding and elope with her love into the dark forest where no one can stop them from expressing their love for one another.

Generational conflict and revenge. The play is about two families that have a history of conflict. At the onset of the plot, the bridegroom’s mother is hypersensitive towards violence and condemns the use of weapons such as the knife, shotguns, pistols, mattocks and pitchforks to hurt others. Again, Leonardo and the bridegroom are caught up in a revengeful situation against the enemy and end up dying. The author suggests that revenge is a harmful and unproductive move since it does nothing but create misfortune for everyone involved.

Structure and style of the author

The author uses symbolism as the dominant style in the whole play. Symbols are anything that represents something, and symbolism in literary work involves the use of a system of symbols in an appealing manner to enable the audience to relate and understand the concept in question better. In the play, different symbols are used for various purposes. For instance, the setting of the play at the beginning takes place in the rural home and ends in the church to represent the author’s background, where he spent most of his childhood. The horse in the lullaby, the grapes, the flowers and the bull are all elements that Lorca is familiar with from his childhood in the village near Granada, where his father hailed as a farmer.

Similarly, the author uses different colors to indicate the progress of the events in the play. For instance, the play begins in a house painted yellow to represent the bridegroom’s financial status as a man of great wealth and riches. Leonardo and Brides home are characterized by the color pink, a variant of red, to represent both passions between the two lovers and death in the end. The final scene takes place in a stark white dwelling which suggests hope and life. Other notable symbols include the dark forest, which is a symbol of protection from the societal pressures (p66), and place of death. The knife is used as a symbol of death and violence, while the beggar woman is used as the only spiritual character that could foresee the blood death of Leonardo and the bridegroom (p61). Overall, Lorca employs the use of symbolism for most parts of the literary work to connect with the audience and express societal oppression.

Work Cited

Garcia, Lorca. Blood Wedding

Nasir, Fatma. “Blood Wedding.” Academia.edu-Share Research, Retrieved from:

www.academia.edu/27596210/Blood_Wedding.