Question: How does blood wedding depict men and women struggling to resolve problems and

not succeeding well?

Structure Planning:

Introduction:
● Add an interesting quote or hook.
● Theme of blood wedding and the overall summary

1st Paragraph:
● The situation between Leonardo and his Wife having an unhappy marriage.
● Give evidence from the text
● Explain the connection between the evidence and the claim
● Give multiple examples
● Add literary devices if relevant
2nd Paragraph:
● The Mother is having trouble moving on from the trauma of the death of her husband
and eldest son.
3rd Paragraph:
● The situation between Bride and Bridegroom that gets problematic when Leonardo
enters.

Conclusion:
Blood Wedding, a gut-wrenching play written in 1933 by Frederico Garcia Lorca depicts a tragic
love story that got tangled within the ropes of societal norms and traditions. Frederico Garcia
Lorca was a Spanish playwright born in Granada, however, the setting is a place next to
Granada known as Andalusia. Although the writer incorporated various fictional elements into
the play, the main plot was based on a true story. Lorca revolved the play around societal norms
during the 1930s, as well as themes such as intergenerational conflict, love, passion, revenge,
unhappiness - specifically in the context of marriage - and more. These themes can be seen
throughout the play as it begins with the introduction of the Bridegroom and Mother in Act 1,
Scene 1, where the audience gets familiarized with Mother's trauma, that her husband and
eldest son were killed by their family’s rivals. Moving forth, hints of love and passion are evident
between Leonardo and Bride during the wedding scene and the theme of revenge is most
apparent towards the end of the play, when both Bridegroom and Leonardo are killed. Whilst
these devastating events take place, Lorca mentions several moments where both men and
women encountered problems that they struggled to overcome. This also includes the situation
between Leonardo and his wife, as well as the situation between Bride and Bridegroom when
Leonardo enters the wedding scene. These scenes in the play clearly analyze the problems all
men and women face and how they struggle to overcome them, leading to a troublesome life.

Act 1, Scene 2 is a clear depiction of the unhappiness between Leonardo and his wife in their
marriage. The tension is aroused in the beginning when Leonardo enters his home to his wife
and Mother-in-law caring for the baby. When she says, “Yesterday the neighbors told me they’d
seen you on the other side of the plains,” she is referring to the neighbors to indirectly confront
her husband about going too far and wearing down the horse. He then responds with brief and
vague answers as a way of defending his actions. Another example of their tense, unhappy
marriage involves the wife’s cousin, also known as Bride, who was to get married soon. In this
scene, Leonardo speaks with hostility, saying, “Are you going to cry now? Stop it!” to the wife.
This shows that the unhappiness with their marriage was an issue that was lingering for long
and was the cause of tension in their marriage. This scene can also be a reference to the
societal norms that women must hide their displeasures for the sake of their marriage. Hence,
their emotions and needs are often neglected by their husbands. This is evident when Leonardo
brushes off this issue and changes the subject to the baby despite the fact that it troubled his
wife. In this case, the wife faces the problem of having to tolerate her emotions being neglected
by her husband in a tense and unhappy marriage which, eventually, falls apart due to the rising
conflict.

Another woman who faces a distressing problem that she is unable to resolve is Mother.
Following her traumatic past life, where her husband and eldest son were victims to murder by
the Felix family, she has lived a very fearful life. In Act 1, Scene 1, Lorca uses several
hyperboles to convey just how much the Mother is troubled and cannot seem to get over her
trauma. Internal and long-term trauma is one of the various problems Lorca discusses in the
play, yet there seems to be no solution towards it. The line, “The months pass and
hopelessness pecks at my eyes…even at the roots of my hair,” shows the daily struggles of the
mother, who-living confined in her household-dwells with the reality of her life. Another example
of Mother’s trouble is in the same act, when she says, “I don’t know how you dare carry a knife
on your body, nor how I can leave the serpent inside the chest.” This is a profound image the
writer creates to implant a vivid description of the knife into the audience’s mind. It can also be
inferred that the image was created to showcase the extent of trauma Mother has endured as
the image lingers in the audience’s mind, referring to the long lasting effects of the tragedy.
Furthermore, the mother’s struggles can be expanded in her conversation with Neighbor soon
after, where she immediately perks at the mention of the Felix family. She adds by saying,
“...Felix is the same as filling my mouth with slime….” This connects to the theme of
intergenerational conflict as the Mother holds hostility toward Felix even though he was only
eight when the conflict had occurred. This theme can build on the idea of the mother’s trouble
and how she struggles to overcome it, hence, she continues to hold a grudge on the entire
family.

In addition to the struggles women face, Lorca also expresses the problems men face in the
play, thus, preventing them from surviving for long. This includes the complex love triangle
between the Bride, Bridegroom, and Leonardo. The Bridegroom, having been unaware of the
feelings Bride has for Leonardo, gets entangled in the fiasco between Bride and Leonardo when
they decide to elope. For instance, in Act 3, Scene 1, Bridegroom states, “You see this arm?
Well it’s not my arm. It’s my brother’s arm and my father’s and my whole dead family’s.” In this
quote, Lorca uses symbolism - the symbol being his arm - to show the respect Bridegroom had
for his deceased family members and how he is willing to sacrifice anything for them. This
connects to the theme of revenge and shows how due to the Bridegroom's troubled state, he
goes after Leonardo to take revenge, hence, leading to his own death. In continuation,
Bridegroom says, “I can feel the teeth of all my loved ones piercing me here so I can’t breathe.”
The metaphor is used to convey the physical pain Bridegroom feels for his family members and
his current situation involving Bride. In other words, a reference to his loved ones in this
scenario could indicate that his pain is so great, that his loved ones feel the same extent of it,
hence, piercing him. In addition to the ending scene, Lorca also gives light to the fact that
Bridegroom was completely unaware of Bride’s unhappiness leading to the dramatic scene
where Bride runs away. The reason for his unawareness is the fact that the Bridegroom
continued to distract him from any suspicious thoughts, noting that she “wanted to go to the
church quickly so she can be his wife and be alone with him.” This prevented the Bridegroom
from noticing Bride’s true intentions, leading to a disastrous ending.

In this tragedy, Lorca’s use of literary devices, figurative language, and imagery added to the
intriguing plot and provided the audience with an impactful ending. Additionally, Lorca’s holistic
approach to the idea of problems that are encountered in life allows the audience to understand
the ways in which these problems affect the characters - both men and women - in the play and
lead to an unsuccessful and catastrophic ending. His detailed narration of the complex past life
of Leonardo and the Bride, emotional illustration of Mother’s trauma, and the portrayal of the
Bridegroom’s pitiful state all describe the problems both men and women face in a traditional
family and how these can escalate, leading to a problematic ending.