41 pages • 1 hour read
Lope de VegaFuenteovejuna
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1618A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Class Struggle
One of the central themes of Fuenteovejuna is that of class struggle, and, in fact, the play was frequently adapted by communist powers during the 20th century in order to display the message of the power of the common people over the aristocracy.
There is a wide gulf between those in power in the play and those who do not have power; namely, the poor farmers and peasants of Fuenteovejuna. The Commander holes up in the town because he has wealth and power due to his position, and these allow him to easily control the people. Additionally, he demands tithes of them—in other words, he abuses his power and position to take even more from the townspeople from the little that they have. Individually, the people are unable to fight back; however, as a collective, they are able to rise up against the Commander and take their town back. Further, it is only by abandoning their individual identities and adopting the identity of the collective that they are able to escape punishment for the murder of the Commander. This reading is complicated, though, by the fact that they ultimately ask Ferdinand and Isabella to rule them instead of the Commander; they are able to overcome the Commander, but they are perhaps unwilling to overcome class hierarchy.
Building on the larger theme of class struggle and collective action is the smaller, but similar, theme of rural versus city life. These two modes of being are placed in opposition to one another throughout the play, with the townspeople of Fuenteovejuna portrayed as simple, but honorable, people, particularly in comparison to the city people, of whom the Commander and the Grand Master are part. The Commander’s control of the town could also be seen as the rural people being controlled by the city people, despite not sharing their larger concerns. Early in the play, Laurencia and Frondoso mock the morality and hypocrisy of those in the city, suggesting that they have no morals and mean nothing that they say, unlike those in the country who are good, honest people. Likewise, when Leonelo, a university student, returns, he reports not satisfaction and wonder but disillusionment with higher education and the worldliness that came along with it at that time.
Women’s Rights
Another important theme in the play is that of women’s rights. This may perhaps be surprising for a 17th-cenury play, but women’s rights and agency dominate the action of the play. The Commander is described as brutal, and there are certainly some men, such as Mengo, who suffer at his hands; however, it is his brutality toward women that is the center of it. He has essentially turned the town into his own personal harem, taking the women by violence when necessary, and it is his attempted rape of Laurencia that ultimately causes his downfall, not his treatment of the people more broadly. Further, the women of the play are often the ones given agency over the men: we first encounter the town through Laurencia and Pascuala, who are debating the value of men, and who are then asked to settle a debate on the nature of love; toward the end of the play, it is Laurencia who pushes the townspeople to action, and while it is the men who storm the Commander’s residence, we are given to believe that it is the women who take the lives of him and his officers.
Tradition versus Progress
Spain at the time of the events of the play was in a period of great change, and this change is reflected through the play. The backdrop of the play is the battle for control of Spain, one that was ultimately won by Ferdinand and Isabella, a fact explicitly acknowledged through the actions of the Grand Master, and implicitly acknowledged by painting Ferdinand and Isabella as the saviors of the play.
Tradition plays a role in the smaller events, as well. Most overtly is the violent upheaval of traditional social hierarchies, when the townspeople overtake and murder the Commander and Ortuño; as his subjects, this is not just murder but mutiny, and it is clearby the end of the play that while Ferdinand and Isabella decline to find the entire town guilty, they are not happy about pardoning them, either, despite his brutality.
Tradition is also commented on through Esteban: early in the play, he complains of the astrologers who attempt to interpret the weather and make crucial planning decisions about food. Later, he plays along with Frondoso’s request for his daughter’s hand in marriage, while acknowledging that the practice is an outdated courtesy, and that young people no longer follow such traditions. Lastly, Leonelo’s critique of the state of intellectualism is also a comment on tradition, as one of the things he laments is mass-printed books, claiming that society had gotten along just fine without the printing press, and that its introduction has only served to produce large quantities of drivel. The play does not go so far as to suggest that tradition is bad—even in Leonelo’s rant, he acknowledges that some good has come from it—but change is largely applauded.
