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How do women allow action to take place within Blood Wedding?

In Blood Wedding (1997) Lorca presents his audience with very dominant women, who
allow action to take place with the use of symbolism and dialogue
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The patriarchal society that the play is based on is reflected on by the
names of the characters, which are relevant to women acting as extensions to men
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This tragedy can be argued to be similar to one of Sophocles, as the characters within this
play claim to be dragged by supernatural forces, it is easy to see that fate is one of the main
themes of the play and is predetermined before the play even commences
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3

First, one must pay attention to the lack of names that the female characters have: Wife,
Mother, Beggar Woman, Servant, Bride and others
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Lorca appears to have used women as a
device to create action and that exacerbates this idea, as each woman plays a role that allows the
plot to move forward
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1 Lorca, Frederico Garcia, Blood Wedding, London: Bloomsbury, 1997
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3 Delgado, Maria M
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It is clear that the women of Blood Wedding appear to expect change of Leonardo, as the
Mother is forced to stay quiet, and the Bride and Servant want him not to be present at the
wedding
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4 “Leonardo: [
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What
was I to you? Open up your memory, refresh it” (II
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124-125)
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Leonardo asserts his
masculinity and uses his place in the hierarchy of society to overpower her, which again is
relevant to men being compared to bulls that chase after their targets
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With the knowledge of the
character also being married and a father, it is quite clear that this will result in him being
disrespected by his family and the community
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Since the man that has tragically fallen in love with the
bride within the real story has died, it is also expected that Leonardo faces the same fate
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Through this, the writer allows the audience to feel empathy towards the characters, as reality
and the supernatural are merged together
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The
4 Hess, Ursula, et al
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609-642
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Johnson, London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1989, pp
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The Mother doesn’t try to stop her son even though she knew that the
marriage had potential to fall apart; this may be because as a traditional woman most of her
opening dialogue is ignored by the Bridegroom, rendering her unimportant
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First your father
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Then your brother
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(I
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32-37)

The reveal of the conflict between the Felixes and the Bridegroom’s family is shown to have had
a strong impact on both the Mother and the Bridegroom, leaving them both with very different
personalities; we see a mother who is afraid of losing her son, while at the same time is hopeful
to see him in a family of his own
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Are you going to stop?” He
is also presented as a very masculine character that is attempting to overpower his mother, which
proves to be quite difficult as he was never taught how to interact with a woman
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In this play the target would be the Bride, as both Leonardo and the Bridegroom
seek her affection
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The use of rhetorical questions by the mother may reflect
on her fear of losing her voice to her son, as she knows that she should probably move forward
from history and can be in the wrong here
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Since the Mother is afraid of losing her son, she ends up questioning his actions and
ignoring what he has to say
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This is the character who introduces
the past of the Bride and her family, which may lead to the upcoming wedding to be disrespected
by the community
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One may argue that the story about the Bride’s mother, who has not loved her husband, is
presented as a form of foreshadowing
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In Lorca’s society a woman would begin being a good wife by following the example of
her mother, and the Bride did just that
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Staying loyal and obedient to the husband is one of the most important
aspects of being a good wife within this society
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Since this play is set in a patriarchal society, women have to
adjust to the society’s norms and values, amongst which there is tradition
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Don’t tell him anything
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Me too
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(I
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207-210)

If the Mother had not listened to the Neighbour, she would possibly have warned the Bridegroom
about his wife, which would have prevented him from ending up heartbroken and dead
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At the same time, the use of imperatives shows
that perhaps the older, tradition-based generation is in power, but chooses to let the younger
generation make their own decisions
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The introduction of the Bride is very official, and also reflects on traditional aspect of
religion, where women are supposed to be fulfil their duties as wives that are kept away from
their passions
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Lorca
uses a list to portray the Mother’s expectations of what should follow the marriage, to which the
Bride replies with: “I know my duty”
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The
Bride straight away appears uninterested in the marriage for reasons of love, and can be
interpreted to see the marriage as a duty she must fulfil as a woman
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This
may show that even though she claims to want a family with the Bridegroom, she is still unsure
about the decision and doesn’t want to conform to the society’s expectations of a stay-at-home
stereotypical wife
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The representation of the
supernatural in theatre at that time has been newly introduced and was deemed to be called
modernism, even though the play is based on real events, it still chooses to depart from it
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Since the Mother has not taken action, and has not warned her son about the Bride, he
is forced to meet the fate that is the same as his brother’s and father’s
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(III, i
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Through this character, Lorca implies that death is necessary when it comes to
allowing plot to move forward, using a woman, a symbol of life, may also suggest that death is
7 Anderson, Reed, Federico García Lorca, London: Macmillan, 1984
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Considering that the linen is white, it is clear that
before blood has been spilt there was a blank slate that ends up being covered in blood because
of fate
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This is in terms of death, heredity as well as one’s
willpower to cling onto their passions and feelings
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In a way using a homeless character to represent death can be a bit ironic, considering
that the homeless would be likely to face a lonely death
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Perhaps, at heart, she wishes to have her life ended and chooses to entertain herself by
the idea of death of Leonardo and the Bridegroom
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It is almost
as if death wasn’t feared among the characters, and was perhaps expected to take place within the
story
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In conclusion, it is women’s action, as well as inaction, that has allowed the play to tell a
tragic tale within a very modern setting
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8 Ramsden, Herbert, Bodas de Sangre, New York: Macmillan, 1980
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Bressler, Charles, Literary Criticism: An Introduction to theory and Practice, New Jersey:
Longman, 1994
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, Federico García Lorca, London: Routledge, 2008
Hess, Ursula, et al
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609-642
Johnston, David, ‘Introduction’, Federíco Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding, trans
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17-18
Kousar, Rehana and Sarfraz, Nida, Feminist Analysis of Lorca’s “Blood Wedding”, European
Academic Research: 2014
Lorca, Frederico Garcia, Blood Wedding, London: Bloomsbury, 1997
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