From the surface the plot of Blood Wedding is a very simple one. The Bridegroom is to be married to the Bride. The Bridegrooms mother initially expresses doubts having lost both her Husband and one son to an ongoing feud with the Felix family. However, Leonardo, a member of the Felix family and old time love of the Bride’s, begins to re-find his feelings. Having married and fathered a son since breaking up with the Bride, his position is difficult to say the least. On the day of the wedding of the Bride and Bridegroom, Leonardo arrives early and explains his feelings to the Bride, that she only left him because he was poor.
She vehemently denies this, but nothing can dull their passions for one another. However, as she explains “ I’ll shut myself away with my husband, and I’ll love him above everything.” The wedding goes ahead. However, at the party after the wedding the Bride and Leonardo run away together.
Once discovered the Bridegroom sets off in pursuit of them. The Bride and Leonardo escape to the forest, being hunted by the Bridegroom, aided by the Moon. Leonardo tries to tell the bride to return to the Bridegroom, but their love is too strong. The Bridegroom finds them and both himself and Leonardo are killed. (Indeed the play, had it been written by a more liberal Shakespeare may have been called “ The Tragedy of Leonardo”)In the end, the women are left alone to mourn the deaths. The Mother now having lost both her sons and husband to the feud with the Felix family.
The Bride having lost both her husband and true love. However, in Blood Wedding, whilst the plot may be simple enough, it is in the sub-plots that we can see the true Craftsmanship of Lorca. The main sub-plot is t he ongoing feud between the Bridegrooms family and the Felix family. In scene one the Mother tells us the background.
Her Husband and Son were killed and the murderers were sent to jail. But as she says herself, “ The Murderers, in gaol, large as life” The Mother is reluctant to let her son even use a knife (“ Damn all of them and the scoundrel that invented them”) such is the fear she has of losing him. In scene one she also finds out of the past relationship between the Bride and Leonardo. She is still full of hate for the Felix family even if Leonardo was not involved, “ I hear that name – Felix – and for me Felix is the same as filling my mouth with slime and I have to spit.” Another sub-plot is that of the relationship between Leonardo and his Wife.
It is obvious from the first time we meet them that Leonardo and his wife do not have a good loving relationship, “ Are you going to cry now? Stop it!”. It is interesting that in this scene Leonardo is a very powerful character, yet he is so obviously powerless to stop what happens to him later in the play. On the day of the wedding Leonardo rides on ahead of his wife’s carriage, but she more or less orders him to ride in the carriage with her on the way to the church, rather than on the horse with which he rode to the Brides cave. In the end, the Wife is left alone, deserted by her husband who then died. A third sub-plot is the relationship and history between both the Bride and her Father and also the Bride’s Mother. Although she is not a character in Blood Wedding, the Neighbour mentions her, “ I never liked her.
She didn’t love her husband.” Perhaps Lorca was giving us a major clue here! The Bride and her Father live together in the Dry Lands, a couple of hours from the Bridegrooms house. The Father has great dreams of uniting the two families, and talks of his plans to the Bridegroom and Mother. There are many little snippets of history between the characters and tantalising fragments of past events never fully explored, but which provide the rich and colourful background to Blood Wedding. Lorca’s use of language throughout Blood Wedding both supplements and enhances the action and characters. In the same way that Salvador Dali used colours and lines to create his surrealist paintings, Lorca uses language (metaphors, similes etc) to colour the action in Blood Wedding.
Throughout the play Lorca uses naturalistic images to create a paradox with what is happening to the characters. He combines these with his surrealism and love of the metaphor and representation. In Act One Scene One the Mother says “ My dead ones full of weeds, silent, turned to dust”, expressing the deep loss she has suffered. In Act One Scene Two, Leonardo’s Wife and Mother In Law soothe the baby with a Nursery Rhyme.
However, if we look at it closely it takes on a new and darker meaning. Lorca uses a Horse as a metaphor for the feelings Leonardo still has for the Bride. The rhyme tells of the Horse, and it’s demise. The suggested sinister tones show,” For the Horse now starts to weep, Horsey’s hooves are red with bloodHorsey’s mane is frozenDeep inside his staring eyesA silver dagger broken” As we discover later in the play, Leonardo’s passion will eventually lead to his death. Lorca’s extremely clever use of the metaphor throughout the play (such as when the Wife and Leonardo talk about the horse being seen in the Dry Lands) is just one example of the craftsmanship of the playwright. Perhaps the most telling example of this is in Act Two Scene One, where the Servant says to Leonardo “ You will kill the animal racing him like that”, to which Leonardo retorts “ If it dies, it dies” Lorca also uses the orange Blossom, traditionally given from the Bridegroom to the Bride as a metaphor.
Leonardo makes suggestions to the Bride when he goes to speak to her before the wedding. In tradition, the Orange Blossom was traditionally associated with marriage, and Leonardo makes hints about the marriage between the Bride and Bridegroom. “ Did the Bridegroom bring the Orange Blossom for her to wear it on her heart”. Lorca uses the orange Blossom, not so much in its traditional meaning but more as a metaphor for the love the Bridegroom shows. When the Bride becomes angry and indignant at Leonardo’s insinuations, you can almost hear a voice calling “ Methinks the lady does protest too much”. Lorca also combines straight text with poetic passages.
Indeed, the first example of this being the lullaby sung for Leonardo’s son. Lorca was also renown for his work as a poet (Publishing such volumes as Gypsy Ballads), and the depth he uses in these poetic passages (as mentioned before) is testament to his talents as both a playwright and a poet. Perhaps Lorca’s most effective use of language comes at the end of the play, Act Three Scene Two, where the women are left mourning. The Mother begins what could almost be a prayer “ It’s the same / The Cross, The Cross”. This quickly develops (almost like pre-conscious writing) into an oratory on the knife “ A fish without scales or river”. The haunting last lines perhaps sum up the tragedy and almost sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” That barely fits the hand, But that slides in clean, Through startled flesh, And stops there, at the placeWhere trembles enmeshed, The dark root of a scream” Form And StructureBlood Wedding is written in a fairly basic structure.
The play is split into Three Acts, the action of each is very cleverly split. Lorca juxtaposes each of the scenes together extremely cleverly. The scenes and action runs as follows: Act 1 Scene 1: We see the Bridegroom and his Mother. Act 1 Scene 2: We see Leonardo’s family.
Act 1 Scene 3: We see the Bridegroom and his Bride. Act 2 Scene 1: The Bride prepares for her wedding. She tells Leonardo that she loves the Bridegroom and shall marry him. Act 2 Scene 2: The Bride elopes with Leonardo, with the Bridegroom setting off in pursuit.
Act 3 Scene 1: The Bride and Leonardo escape to the forest, where the Bridegroom catches them. Leonardo and the Bridegroom die. Act 3 Scene 2: The women are left in mourning. The greatest contrasts between the scenes is perhaps in Act 3. In Scene One we see the Bride and Leonardo escaping.
It is an extremely busy scene, with characters coming on and off stage all the time, with high tension. Lorca also introduces new themes even in this late scene. The Scene is also extremely Dramatic (no pun intended!), be centered mainly around action rather than the characters. In contrast to this, Act Three Scene Two is an entirely different scene.
It is a quiet scene, with very strong imagery (the red wool). The action is subdued but no less intense than Scene One. It could be said that whilst Scene One was the climax of the play and story, Scene Two is almost the climax of the subtext and themes that Lorca fills Blood Wedding with. The final poetic lines sum up (as mentioned before) the very message that I feel Lorca is trying to hammer home throughout the play. However, the contrasting does not only happen between different scenes.
In Act One Scene One, it is quite interesting to see that way that Lorca uses the entrance of the Neighbour to show the Mother as a traditional Spanish woman. As the neighbour says herself, “ You and Me, we have to keep quiet” Lorca’s structuring of the play mean that unlike some other plays, Blood Wedding must be played in it’s entirety to fully express the sentiments of the playwright and to gain full understanding. This heightens the fact that Lorca feels that the themes explored and events in Blood Wedding are unavoidable. You cannot only have a part of it, the events will run their course until the inevitable heart rending climax.
Visual, Aural and Spatial ElementsLorca gives very clear and precise directorial notes in Blood Wedding. It is clear that he feels that the Visual elements are extremely important to the overall play. Again these tie in with his surrealist notions, to counterpoint the strength of the language he uses. A good example is the way he insists on the colour of the set.
In the same way that the surrealist painters use colours and light to create their masterpieces, so Lorca does the same. In the directorial notes for Act 1 Scene 1 he states “ Room painted yellow”. Many people have made suggestions as to why this is, talking about the fertility of wheat (which would tie in with the Mothers line “ Men to be men; wheat wheat.”). Throughout the play it is clear that Lorca feels that the action is supplemented by the visual elements.
However, he does not rely on this alone, and the Aural and Spatial elements of Blood Wedding are also strong. For example, in Act Three Scene One, he states “ A gloomy atmosphere. Two Violins can be heard.” The scene is highly stylised to lie with the heavily stylised characters, such as the Moon and Death.
It is clear that the Forest is not intended to be representative of a real forest, but more of a surreal setting.
