Federico García Lorca: Life, Theater, and Social Themes
Federico García Lorca: Thematic Introduction
The focus of Lorca’s work is the moral confrontation between the authoritarian, rigid, and conventional (represented by Bernarda) and the desire for freedom (embodied by Adela and Maria Josefa). Sub-topics include passionate love affairs, censorship, hypocrisy, and the clash between two characters, attitudes to life, and ideologies.
Moral Clash Between Authoritarianism and Desire for Freedom
Bernarda tries to impose oppressive rules based on her authority as the head of the family. Meanwhile, Adela and Maria Josefa try to rise up and challenge this dominance. The other daughters fear and obey. The imposed eight years of mourning rigidly mark the daughters’ behavior in front of men. Bernarda restores order when her daughters discuss exceptions, and all are subject to discipline.
Adela’s desire for freedom and love impulse are stronger than her mother’s authority. She shows her defiance with a fan and a green dress, expressing her desire for freedom and her decision to break her mother’s rules. A direct confrontation occurs when Adela shatters her mother’s stick, regaining her freedom. With her suicide, she takes another path to freedom.
Sensual Love – The Search for a Male Figure
The absence of love in their lives and the fear of being single are prevalent themes. Bernarda imposes tyrannical mourning and controls her daughters’ movements.
Hypocrisy
- Obsession with cleanliness: The maid cleans the house while Poncia attends the funeral, symbolizing a concern for appearances.
- Fear of gossip: This is a constant in people’s lives, embittering the girls’ lives and marking Bernarda’s conduct.
- The need to appear: Hypocrisy affects Bernarda and Martirio. Magdalena criticizes Martirio’s hypocrisy when congratulated for her engagement anxiety. After Adela’s suicide, Bernarda hides the reality and pretends that nothing strange has happened.
Hate and Envy
The work is full of passages of hatred and envy, expressed through insults, insinuations, and veiled or direct expressions. The women live enclosed in a semi-wild and inhospitable environment.
Social Injustice
Prevalent in the first act, Lorca denounces injustice and social inequalities, class consciousness, pride, and the cruelty of relationships in society. Each character demeans those below them, and Bernarda’s greed prevents her from being generous.
Marginalization of Women
Lorca presents two models:
- One based on relaxed morals, living with apparent freedom, regardless of society, and condemned morally and physically by the people.
- Another based on decency, implying submission to conventional social norms that discriminate against women and benefit men.
Honor
Linked to the theme of appearances and love, Bernarda adheres to rigid conventional principles.
Federico García Lorca: Biography
Federico García Lorca was born on June 5, 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, in the heart of the Vega of Granada. He was the eldest of five siblings and grew up embraced by the strong cohesion of his large family. From a very early age, he showed a talent for music, a fertile imagination, and great leadership in children’s games. These qualities would later emerge in his poems and plays.
With the family’s move to Granada in 1910, Lorca’s childhood ‘paradise’ ended, and he took his first steps into the adult world of the city. In 1915, he entered the University of Granada to pursue degrees in Arts and Law. In 1916, he made two separate trips to the south and central Spain, which were decisive for the assertion of his literary vocation. During the first trip, he met Antonio Machado.
Lorca resented his university studies, and his family decided to send him to Madrid to enter the Residencia de Estudiantes, a branch of the Free Institution of Education. Lorca returned to Granada, where he began a close friendship with Manuel de Falla. He returned to the Residencia de Estudiantes in 1923, where he had a decisive encounter with Salvador Dalí. Along with filmmaker Luis Buñuel, Lorca was introduced to the avant-garde.
On June 25, 1929, Lorca arrived in New York, where he witnessed the deplorable consequences of the NYSE crash. His impressions were collected in Poet in New York, a book published posthumously. After almost a year of absence, and after a brief stay in Cuba, Lorca returned to Spain in 1930.
In New York, Lorca strengthened his social views and sought a channel to express them publicly. In late 1931, he founded La Barraca, a mythical traveling theater company formed by students at the University of Madrid. La Barraca performed Spanish theater classics (Lope, Calderón, Cervantes, etc.) for the people.
In 1932, Lorca wrote Blood Wedding for a wide audience, which became his first major theatrical success. He then traveled to South America, where he expressed his desire to create theater away from bourgeois conventions, with a firm social and even educational vocation.
In December 1934, back in Spain, Margarita Xirgu opened Yerma in Madrid with an apotheosis of success, as Lorca was definitively identified with leftist ideas. Lorca expressed support for the Popular Front. On August 16, the day his brother-in-law was executed, Lorca was arrested and taken to the offices of the Civil Government, where he was shot and killed.
Lorca lived during a period where he interacted with the authors of the “Generation of ’98” and was one of the leading poets and playwrights of the “Generation of ’27”.