Bernarda Alba: A Study of Lorca’s Tragic Masterpiece
The House of Bernarda Alba: A Deep Dive
Lorca’s Mastery of Dialogue
The play showcases Lorca’s mastery of dialogue, marked by its fluidity, intensity, and impactful brevity. The language, rooted in Andalusian vernacular, adds a vibrant, popular flavor, evident in the imagery, wordplay, hyperbole, and creativity. The poetic dimension of the dialogue, rich in symbolism, metaphors, and comparisons, creates a dramatic atmosphere and fosters identification with the characters.
Themes of Freedom and Authority
The overarching theme is the characters’ struggle against social order to attain freedom—a clash between individual liberty and societal authority.
A Poetic Realism
Lorca’s style, despite its apparent simplicity, is skillfully crafted, blending reality and poetry. While the play draws from real-life experiences and is set in a realistic framework, the characters, dramatic situations, and symbolic space are viewed through a poetic lens, transcending the boundaries of pure realism.
Key Sub-Topics
- The injustice of gender-based education, rooted in traditional values that confine women to passivity.
- Raw eroticism devoid of sentimental context, reduced to the primal force of untamed sexual energy.
- The fear of social judgment and the obsession with preserving appearances.
- The concept of honor and its implications within social classes.
The play unfolds without a narrator, relying solely on the characters’ actions and words to convey the story.
Author’s Intentions
Lorca’s intentions are twofold: a social critique of Andalusian society, which resonates universally with women across time and cultures, and a clear artistic purpose reflected in the work’s poetic nature, despite the absence of traditional verse.
Lorca masterfully employs stylistic devices, elevating even vulgar situations through poetic language rich in metaphors and connotations. Simultaneously, the play maintains a realistic tone, with characters like Bernarda and Poncia using colloquial expressions to depict events as they transpired.
Synopsis and Analysis
A Tragic Tale of Repression
The House of Bernarda Alba, a three-act play written in 1936 shortly before Lorca’s execution, premiered in Buenos Aires in 1945. Considered a tragedy by some critics and Lorca himself, the play centers on Bernarda Alba, a 60-year-old widow who imposes eight years of strict mourning on her household. Her religious fanaticism is a defining characteristic.
Structure and Setting
The play follows a chronological order, with occasional pauses in dialogue to emphasize key moments. Externally, the work is divided into three acts:
- Act I: Introduction (the mourning) and part of the rising action (Angustias’ engagement).
- Act II: Suspicions arise about Adela’s affair, and tensions escalate.
- Act III: The climax unfolds with the discovery of the truth, Adela’s death, and Bernarda’s reaffirmed authority.
The setting is primarily within Bernarda’s house. Act I features a detailed description of a room with white walls, arched doorways with moon-shaped curtains (foreshadowing death), jute curtains, and wicker chairs, creating an austere and uncomfortable atmosphere.
Act II shifts to a different white room with doors leading to bedrooms, while Act III takes place in a courtyard with blue hues (symbolizing men) against white walls, centered around a table with a lamp.
Time and Symbolism
The dramatic time is established early on and reinforced through dialogue. The story unfolds over a few hot summer days, beginning with the husband’s burial and mourning in the morning, progressing through the afternoon in Act II, and culminating in the night in Act III. This temporal framework holds symbolic weight, compressing the eight years of mourning into a single day, defying Aristotelian time conventions.