“Life–that’s what they need more than anything else–life.” This quote spoken by The Mother is true in Blood Wedding’s early spanish society, yet it causes one to question what kind of life is one really living when being succumbed by social stereotypes? In Frederico Garcia Lorca’s tragic play, Blood Wedding, he uses many literary strategies in order to maintain various social stereotypes. Three main techniques the author chooses to incorporate include atmosphere, archetypes, and resolution to further his critique of the social stereotype present in this spanish society.
To begin, Frederico Garcia Lorca uses atmosphere constantly throughout the play. Lorca aimed to create a brooding atmosphere of early 1900’s Spain. This time period was characterized by a patriarchal familial structure as well as a roman catholic worldview. The gender roles of the characters are heavily affected by this religious influence throughout the piece, as shown in how marriage and family life is portrayed in the work. During the 1920’s – 1930’s, the period portrayed in this piece, women had little to no rights and no ability to hold a job, so marriage and birthing children was seen as the main aspect of a womans life. As The Mother condescendingly stated “See if you can’t raise me six grandchildren to make me happy.” as if child-bearing was the daughter’s sole purpose; and in this society, it very well might have been.
The brooding atmosphere is first shown in the mothers tone and dialouge, “The knife, the knife! Damn the knife, damn all knives, damn the devil who created knives.” This negative diction is one of the first examples of the brooding atmosphere that surrounds the whole play. This is followed by another instance of a brooding, or serious, atmospheric tone by The Mother, “The killers are in prison, yes. But what is prison? They eat, they smoke, they play guitars. While the grass fills the bodies of my dead.”, which gives the reader background information and adds to the grim aspect of the work. An additional example of the wide use of brooding diction includes a quote by the Girl expressing that “We are all burned-out. These very walls shoot flames. ” This discriptive quote continues to deliver the brooding tone the author is attempting to convey. The main purpose of the brooding atmosphere is to entrap the women as well as the men in their social stereotypes by providing a grim and immovable tone throughout the piece.
To continue, Lorca’s use of archetypes helps to further the social stereotyping he desires to critique in his piece, Blood Wedding. Lorca uses archetypes in order to reveal each person’s attributes solely based on actions, speech and the reader’s previous stereotypes rather than by names given to the characters by the author. The reader’s previous stereotypes imply certain connections to the reader, such as The Mother, for example; It causes the reader to think about his own mother and those stereotypes associated with that name rather than just looking at the character as unrelatable or a different individual. By naming the helper “Servant” instead of giving them a legitimate name you then recognize them as a servant. You immediately understand that it is a woman in a servant’s role which in turn helps the reader to fill up the remaining details with background information.
This causes all of the characters to be filled with their own stereotypes which sets the story in a completely reader-generated setting, just as Lorca wants. This concept is brought throughout the whole story with almost all of the characters, except for the main antagonist, Leonardo. The reason Lorca gives Leonardo a name and not just an archetype is to attract attention to him and to discourage the reader from applying their own stereotypes and to allow the author to provide the information necessary to fill the antistereotypical role of Leonardo. This frequent use of archetypes helps to revolve the story around Leonardo and specifically tell the reader where the attention should be.
To continue further, the author implements resolution in order to keep the social stereotypes intact . The resolution traditionally concludes the falling action, and in the case of Blood Wedding, the resolution is extremely important. In the final act of the play, Death, disguised as an old beggar, searches for the men that the bride has become involved with. Leonardo, feeling as though his unhappy love life must be the blame of someone other than himself, he claims “Ever since my own wedding day I’ve been asking myself night and day who was to blame. And I’m always finding somebody new to blame. – Because somebody somewhere must be to blame.” This helps to explain the character that Leonardo is and has become as he progresses throughout the play. Because the author lets the reader experience Leonardo’s inner feelings, the reader feels as though he knows Leonardo deeper than the other characters, and therefore is affected deeper after his death.
After the climax, when both the men in The Bride’s life have been killed, she finds herself lost and alone, almost as if she was being punished for breaking the social stereotypes that have bound her and her fellow women in society. The reason the author uses resolution is due to the fact that if the play had ended directly after the climax, the story would have lost it’s true purpose, which is that social stereotypes are necessary to hold society together. In addition to the role the resolution plays in the importance of keeping the stereotypes intact, the mothers change in tone also adds to the resolution of the work in that it adds to the change that occurs after the climax. After the climax, not only does the brides entire character change in that she lost the desire to break the social stereotypes, but the entire diction of the piece also changes.
In tis quote by the mother, “This knife / Left two men stiffening / With yellow lips. / It barely fits the hand / But slides in cold / Through startled flesh / Till it stops, there, / In the quivering / Dark / Roots / Of the scream.” The diction changes from smooth story telling to poetic, staccato greif. This continuation of the resolution to the piece helps to add to his ongoing critique of the stereotypical society that those in Blood Wedding reside in.
Although the author chooses to implement many literary techniques throughout his piece, Blood Wedding, the three crucial techniques that help to develop his ideas the greatest include atmosphere, present in the brooding diction throughout the play, archetype, as shown in The Mother as well as Leonardo, and finally resolution, as seen in the concluding factors that show the punishment The Bride endures for breaking the norm, in order to keep the various social stereotypes that are present in this early 1900’s spanish society intact.
