The House of Bernarda Alba – Garcia Lorca

Setting - In the house of Bernarda Alba in Southern Spain

Characters
Bernarda

1.      A sixty-year old widow with five daughters

2.      She represents the land-owning upper class of the Spanish society

3.      In a way, Bernarda represents the tyrannical rule of the Spanish dictator Franco who killed Lorca

4.      The mourners call her “a dried up lizard”

5.      However, she notices a widower at the church, not Pepe

6.      She laments that hers was a “damned town without a river, this town of wells”

7.      Wells are reference to stagnation, while rivers refer to fertility and life  

8.      She is a product of the values and traditions of her society

9.      She also has to bear the responsibility of five unmarried daughters and her mother

10.  According to her, men and women have specific roles: “A needle and thread for females, a mule and a whip for male”

11.  She controls the lives of all around her

12.  The symbol of her authority is the cane

13.  She has a negative attitude towards sex

14.  She wants the mob to finish Librada’s daughter before the police got there and put “burning coal in the place she sinned!”

15.  She does not express any feeling other than anger; she does not cry when her husband died or when Adela kills herself

16.  She does not allow her daughters to express their sorrow either

a.       Tells Magdalena, “Magdalena don’t cry! If you want to cry, crawl under the bed. Do you here me?”

b.      At Adela’s death she silences her daughters: “Did you here me? Silence! Silence, I said! Silence!”   

17.  She does not believe children should have an independent voice. When one of the mourners daughters says that the poor, too, must eat to live, Bernada says, “At your age, one does not speak in front of one’s elders”

18.  She has a low opinion of the poor and the working class

19.  She attempts to keep up the appearance by telling that Adela died a virgin: “My daughter had died a virgin. Carry her to her room and dress her in white

Adela

1.      She is the youngest and the most beautiful of Bernarda’s daughters

2.      She challenges Bernarda’s tyranny

a.       When her mother declares an 8-year long mourning period, she says, “I can’t be locked up! I don’t want my body to dry up like yours!”

b.      She wears a green dress and models for the chicken

c.       She carries on an affair with Pepe

d.      She breaks her mother’s cane: “This is what I do with the tyrant’s rod! Don’t take one step more. No one gives me orders but Pepe”

e.       She commits suicide instead of living under her mother’s tyranny

3.      Adela is passionate: she tells Poncia, “When I look into his eyes, I feel I am slowly drinking in his blood”

4.      However, she is not completely free from patriarchy which Bernarda represents: she is ready to take orders from Pepe

5.      According to Martirio, Adela “was fortunate thousand times over – she had him”

Martirio

1.      In Spanish her name means ‘martyr’

2.      Her relationship with Enrique Humanas was put a stop to by Bernarda over class considerations

3.      Martirio was sick and deformed

4.      She is hopelessly attracted to Pepe and steals his photograph from Angustias

5.      She is afraid of men and sexuality: “Since I’ve been afraid of them … I was always afraid of growing up for fear of suddenly finding myself in their clutches”

6.      She betrays Adela to her mother by pointing out the straw clinging to her petticoat

7.      It is because of her lie that Bernarda had killed Pepe that Adela kills herself

8.      Magdalena calls her a “fiend” for causing their sister’s death

9.      Poncia says that Martirio is “a well of poison” – her stagnation and frustration had poisoned her mind 

Angustias

1.      Bernarda’s daughter by her first marriage

2.      According to Magdalena, Angustias looked like “a scarecrow when she was twenty”

3.      Pepe proposes to her because of her money

4.      Angustias accepts it: “gold in your purse is better than dark eyes in your face”

5.      Pepe gives her a ring with pearls, which according to Prudencia a symbol of sadness

Maria Josefa

1.      Bernarda keeps her locked up thinking she was crazy

2.      She understand the situation at home well

3.      She wants to marry “a beautiful man from the edge of the sea”

4.      Her character adds a touch of humour to the play

Pepe el Romano

1.      A 25-year-old suitor of Angustias and lover of Adela

2.      He never physically appear on the play, but all the actions in the play are connected to him

3.      Maria Josefa calles him a giant and Adela calls him a lion

Themes

·         Oppressive religious and social traditions and the Status of women

1.      Magdalena refers to a better time: “Those were happier times! A wedding lasted ten days and wagging tongues were not in fashion”

2.      But now the former organic village society has changed 

3.      According to Bernarda, “A needle and thread for females; a mule and a whip for males. That is how it is for people born with means”

4.      The only honourable option for a woman is to be married

5.      Marriage is acceptable only between social equals

6.      Dowry was a necessity

7.      Unmarried women are to be under repressive guardians

8.      Women could be exploited by their male guardians – Adelaida

9.      Angustias is joyful because she would escape spinsterhood: “Fortunately, I’ll soon be getting out of this hell”

10.  According Martirio all men cared about “is land, oxen, and a meek little dog to cook for them”

11.  Pepe tells Angustias: “You know why I’m here. I need a good woman, well-behaved, and that’s you, if you aree”

12.  Ponica describes the status of a married woman: “Anyway, it is best for a single woman like you to know that fifteen days after the wedding, a man leaves the bed for the table, then the table for the tavern. And any woman who doesn’t accept it rots away crying in the corner!”

13.  The virginity of unmarried women must be preserved at whatever the coast

14.  Bernarda says she had five chains for her five daughters

15.  Magdalena says, “Not even our eyes belong to us”

16.  Sexual double standards

a.       Women have to repress their sexuality – Librada’s daughter 

b.      Men are expected to ‘saw their wild oats’ – harvesters, Poncia’s son

17.  Women should not look at men except the priest, and that too because he wore “skirts”

18.  Poncia notes that Adela was frightened as if she had “a lizard between her breasts” due to her affair 

19.  Poncia tells Adela, “I keep watch! So people won’t spit when they come through the door”

20.  Hence, as Magdalena points out, “inside we rot away over what people will say”

·         Resistance

1.      Poncia kills her husband’s finches

2.      Adela’s affair with Pepe: “I do what I want with my body”

3.      She says, “I’ll fight with my mother, to put out this fire that rises from my legs and mouth”

4.      When she heard the harvesters have come Adela says, “Oh, if only I could go to the fields, too”

5.      Paca la Roceta whose husband is impotent goes off with men to the mountains and return with a circle of flowers on her head

6.      The woman wearing the sequined dress

7.      Maria Josefa tries to run away and get married 

8.      Poncia would lock herself up in a room with Bernarda and spit at her  

9.      The maid who had been sexually abused by Bernarda’s dead husband: “Rot away, Antonio … Never again will you lift up my skirt behind the back of the corral” 

·         Class

1.      Poncia tells Bernarda that it was time for the daughters to marry, but Bernarda insists that  there were no men worthy of their status

2.      Bernarda does not allow Enrique to marry Martirio: “My blood will never mix with that of the Humanas family”

3.      To Beranda, “The poor are like animals”

4.      When Poncia asks Bernada to give away some of her dead husband’s clothes to the poor, Bernada says, “Nothing, not a button!”

5.      She terrorizes her servants. The Maid: “If Bernada doesn’t see things shine, she will pull out the few hairs I have left!”

6.      She abuses Poncia: “That’s what you should do – work and keep your mouth shut”

7.      The maid says she would like to have what Bernarda’s family has. In reply Poncia says, “What you and I have is our hands and a hole to be buried in when we die”

8.      Poverty brings out cruelty in the poor. When the beggar woman says, “My daughter are alone”, the Maid refuses to give the leftover food by saying, “Dogs are alone, too, and they get by”

·         Appearance vs. reality

1.      Bernarda says “I want to keep up appearances that we have harmony in the family”

2.      Poncia warns that “something monstrous” was happening in the house

3.      But Bernarda ignores her warning and says, “I know my fate – and that of my daughters”

Techniques

·         Symbols

1.      Heat and thirst, stallion kicking the wall – sexual frustration

2.      Water, watermelon, crown of flowers  – sexual satisfaction 

3.      Harvesters – aggressive male spirit that “burnt like trees” 

4.      White walls – purity, lifelessness, lack of passion

5.      The black fan and black clothes – repression of sensuality

6.      The colourful fan and green dress – celebration of life and sexuality

7.      Bernarda’s cane – patriarchal authority