Blood Wedding

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1932

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act I

Act II

Act III

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Act IAct Summaries & Analyses

Act I, Scene 1 Summary

The scene opens in the Bridegroom’s home. The Bridegroom, a young man who has recently purchased a distant vineyard, prepares to leave and survey his property. His Mother suggests he eat something, but when the Bridegroom asks her to pass him a knife to cut grapes from the vine, the Mother grows upset. She virulently curses: “Damn the knife, damn all knives, damn the devil who created knives” (1). She grows distraught at the mention of a knife because it recalls for her the violent deaths of her husband and other son. Each were killed due to violence between two feuding families, the Felix family and the unnamed family of the Mother and Bridegroom. The Mother has been unable to move past these losses; she begins a tirade against the Felix family, one that she repeats often. The Bridegroom is used to her emotional response, and tries to soothe her by inviting her with him to the vineyard. This, however, triggers a new topic of conversation: the Bridegroom’s upcoming nuptials.

Now that the Bridegroom has acquired the vineyard, he is in the position to marry. However, his Mother doesn’t have a good feeling about the Bride: “Whenever I speak her name it’s as if a stone hit me between the eyes” (3). The Bridegroom waves off her worries and invites her to come live with him and the Bride at the vineyard. The Mother declines, as she would rather stay close to the graves of her husband and son; she worries that if she is not vigilant, a member of the Felix clan might be buried next to them. When the Mother asks her son if his Bride had past loves, the Bridegroom professes apathy and ignorance despite having known her for three years. He is ready to marry, having acquired land. He and his Mother plan to meet with the Bride’s Father to firm up the details of the arranged marriage. Before the Bridegroom leaves, his Mother asks him to be dutiful and provide her with six grandchildren, though with the caveat that they all be girls “[s]o we can all sew and make lace and be peaceful” (5).

Once the Bridegroom has gone, the Mother meets with a Neighbour. The Neighbour has seen a friend’s son mutilated by farm equipment, and they both profess a desire to keep their sons safe. The Mother inquires after the Bride and her family. The Neighbour describes the Bride as “a fine young woman” (6), but reveals that the Bride’s mother, who is dead, never loved her husband. She discloses that the Bride did have “an admirer” when she was fifteen, a young man named Leonardo who married the Bride’s cousin, and that this Leonardo is a member of the Felix family. Though the Neighbour advises the Mother against blaming Leonardo for something his family did when he was only eight, the Mother is enraged, but agrees not to say anything to her son.

Act I, Scene 2 Summary

At Leonardo’s house the next morning, Leonardo’s Mother-in-law and Wife sing a lullaby in poetic verse to soothe a baby to sleep. The lullaby, about a horse who is unable to drink the water of a river despite its great thirst, soothes the child, and as they put the baby to bed, Leonardo arrives. Leonardo is abrasive and uninterested in listening to his Wife. When he complains that he is constantly re-shoeing his horse, his Wife suggests that he pushes the horse too hard. Leonardo insists that he hardly uses the horse. His Wife reveals that she knows he was on the other side of the plain the day before. Leonardo denies this, despite his Mother-In-Law having seen the horse “heaving as though he’d just come back from the end of the world” (12). He commands his wife to prepare food. When his Mother-in-law enters the room and questions him about pushing the horse, Leonardo grows short with her and again lies about where he was.

Leonardo’s Wife reveals that her cousin, the Bride, is going to get engaged. Leonardo suggests that the Mother’s worries about the Bride are well-founded, but when reminded of his previous relationship with the Bride, he brushes it off. He takes his wife to see the baby. While they are in another room, a Child enters and reports to the Mother-in-law that she saw the Bridegroom and his Mother buy “all the best things, all the most expensive” at the shop in town for the engagement dowry (15). Leonardo and his wife re-enter the room. When the Child relates what she has seen, Leonardo reacts cruelly, sending the Child running away crying. He shouts at his Mother-in-law and Wife before leaving them to sooth the crying child with the resumption of their lullaby.

Act I, Scene 3 Summary

The Mother and the Bridegroom—referred to in this scene as the Son—arrive at the Bride’s home to speak with her Father about the engagement. The journey took four hours across the plains, as the Mother could not bear the “scrambling up and down by the river” (16). When they arrive, they speak with the Father, a successful alfalfa farmer who is proud of the yield of his land. He wishes that his land and the Bridegroom’s vineyard could be conjoined rather than separated by such distance, claiming, when the Mother scoffs at this, that it would be “a beautiful thing” (17).

The Mother and Father arrange the marriage of their children, each proclaiming their child’s virtues. The Bridegroom has a clean name and “has never known a woman” while the Bride “never chatters” and is “gentle as a fleece” (18). Arranging the wedding is a perfunctory exercise. The event will take place the following Thursday on the Bride’s twenty-second birthday. Matters of transport for the in-laws are briefly discussed. The Bride enters, though her manner is very restrained. The Mother asks her if she is happy. She can only manage a solemn “[y]es” (19). When asked if she knows what a marriage means she simply replies: “I know my duty” (19). The Bridegroom professes that he feels a great emptiness whenever he is away from her, to which the Bride dryly responds: “Once you’re my husband that will go” (20).

After the Mother and the Bridegroom leave, an excited Servant tries to convince the Bride to open gifts that were brought, but the sullen Bride refuses. The Servant changes the topic of conversation, mentioning that she heard a horse outside the house at three in the morning the previous night. The Bride suggests that it might have been the Bridegroom, as he has come to the house at that time before. The Servant disagrees and claims she saw the rider: It was Leonardo. The Bride grows angry and shouts at the Servant to shut up. At that moment, they hear a horse rushing away from the window. The Servant is quick enough to spot who is atop the horse: Leonardo, again.

Act I Analysis

Tightening social constrictions around the Bride and the Bridegroom characterize much of the first act. Every interaction portrays traditional conventions hardwired into Spanish agricultural society. The first scene establishes the existence and perpetuation of the feud, and the cascading psychological consequences on the Mother; the second establishes Leonardo’s fiery passion, his inability to deny his desire; and the third establishes the Bride’s persona outside the bonds of society.

Leonardo’s Wife and Mother-in-law engage in activities common to their roles, caring for children and the household: The lullaby illustrates their dutiful adherence, each woman playing her part in fulfilling functions at home. At the Bride’s home, her Father and the Mother engage in careful conversation before establishing the wedding in broad stokes, according to traditional dictates.

In each scene, the characters present antagonisms to the social order. The Mother expresses her wish that the Bridegroom were born a girl, implying that he would be immune from violent death. In virtually every scene she expresses a similar sentiment, usually coupled with her lamentations about the loss of her husband and son, creating a refrain that repeats throughout the play. This reflects the recurrence of trauma: Such losses are endemic to the female population of Spain because of the cycle of violence perpetuated by the honor code. Twice in the first scene, the Mother comments that girls are outside the grasp of violent retributive justice, but that men caught in its grip will come to violent ends, foreshadowing Leonardo’s death. Later, in the same scene, the Mother discusses this with the Neighbour who echoes her sentiments (6), underscoring that this is a society-wide belief, not one limited to victims.

Lorca composed every aspect of his plays, from their sets to the lyrics and music woven throughout the work. Often, to evoke the local origins of his drama, Lorca drew from traditional and ritual music, though altering them in a way that they would challenge the assumptions and expectations built into Spanish culture. An example of this is the lullaby Leonardo’s Wife and Mother-in-law sing in the second scene. The lullaby, about a horse who is unable to drink the water of a river despite great thirst, is adapted from a popular Grenadian lullaby. Lorca distorts the lyrics to turn it into a prophecy of events to come. Leonardo, who is continually associated with horses throughout the play, is the horse, and the Bride the water he can never drink, despite his desperation. Lorca’s major distortion occurs during the Mother-in-law’s first part, in which she evokes silver daggers by the river. This foreshadows the end of the play, in which the Wife mentions “[f]lies of silver” (10). Throughout Blood Wedding—and the rest of Lorca’s work—silver carries connotations of death.

Leonardo is ruled by desire. His self-interest is shown through his overuse of the horse, his unwillingness to consider its physical well-being. He refuses to entertain contrary opinions and doesn’t comply with social expectations. In contrast to the rest of the characters, he doesn’t play his socially established role. His denial and desire make him singular and specific enough for a name. The only other named characters—Raphael, the maimed son of the Neighbour’s friend, and the murderous Felix family—also stand outside of conventional society. Leonardo’s individuality heavily impact the characters surrounding him, three of the four which he makes cry. His individualism and impertinence is echoed by one other character in the play: the Bride.

The third scene is steeped in the conventions of formality. The proud Father, a man of the land, boasts of his crop and the virtue of his daughter; the Bridegroom dutifully discusses the weather and farming with his future Father-in-law; and the Mother, in her dual role as widow, evoking her dead, negotiates her son’s wedding. Until the Bride arrives, the scene entails the trading of manners and niceties. The Bride’s inability to show excitement for the wedding separates her from the other characters. Her appearance late in the scene after social rituals have been performed mirrors Leonardo’s appearance in the second scene; each of them shatter the domestic complacency so carefully tended by the other characters.