House of Bernarda Alba: A Tragedy
The House of Bernarda Alba
A Drama of Women in the Villages of Spain
The house takes on a particularly dramatic value; it becomes the nuclear axis of the dramatic action. The title indicates the relevance of Bernarda Alba in the development of the work, carrying connotations of ownership and belonging: Bernarda owns the house and its inhabitants. This drama announces a tragic outcome. Women are the protagonists in a bitter and violent story. Regarding the people of Spain, the author seeks to denounce the evils characterizing rural Spain of his time.
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The central theme is the confrontation between a moral authoritarian, rigid, and conventional figure (Bernarda) and the desire for freedom (María Josefa and Adela). Bernarda tries to impose her oppressive rules based on her authority as head of household after her husband’s death, while Adela and María Josefa rebel and try to defy her control. The other daughters resignedly accept their fate, although they seem to confront their mother on occasion. The maids (Poncia and the criada) live under Bernarda’s domination and authority; out of fear, they dare not face her and merely mutter behind her back. Bernarda’s authoritarianism is manifested in the eight years of mourning she imposes, rigidly dictating her daughters’ behavior with men and restoring order when her daughters argue. However, the desire for freedom and the impulse of love are stronger than Adela’s fear of her mother. From the beginning of the play, Adela expresses her rebellion (the range of flowers, the green dress, her expressed desire for freedom). In the end, there is a direct confrontation with her mother; she breaks her cane and defends her freedom. Her time of freedom is fleeting, ending with her suicide. Once again, the gloomy, dark domination of Bernarda is imposed, and her daughters are condemned to live indoors without hope. María Josefa, through her madness, finds the only escape for a character confined to a room. Madness gives her the strength to confront and denounce Bernarda’s tyranny and the suffering and subjugation of the other women.
Secondary Issues
Love, Sensuality, and the Search for a Male
The plight of these women is expressed by the absence of love in their lives and the fear of remaining single. Bernarda has imposed eight years of mourning, preventing any possibility of them establishing loving relationships. Bernarda prohibits men from entering her home, and her daughters are losing hope of finding husbands. Pepe el Romano unleashes the passions of these single women, who wish to marry to escape Bernarda’s tyranny and live joyful and happy lives.
Real Experience
Adela’s passion (Act I): the range of green and red symbolizes love and passion—the green dress with which she goes into the yard, followed by later meetings with Pepe. Act II moves from Adela’s wishes to the facts, despite Poncia’s warnings. In Act III, Adela’s passion is compared to a stallion and the stars and the beauty of the night. As Martirio discovers, there is excessive violence in her passionate love. There is also a desire for love in the other sisters. Martirio’s love for Pepe is passionate and full of dissatisfaction and envy; she tries to destroy Adela. In Act II, a passion for love is evident in the episode of the portrait. It is this unsatisfied passion that unleashes misfortune and betrays Adela. Angustias’s anguish in Act I stems from meeting men, which causes her mother’s wrath in Act II. Her figure only concerns us insofar as Pepe maintains a cold and distant attitude toward her. Amelia and Magdalena are also involved in male desire and need.
Story Told: Poncia tells Bernarda what happened with Paca, La Roseta; Martirio refers to Adela’s turbulent origins; Amelia recalls an ancient suitor of Martirio; María Josefa says she wants to marry a handsome man from the seashore; Poncia recalls the passionate love for her husband’s followers when they return from their jobs; Poncia celebrates their qualities (their quietness disturbs the women); The Mijer wore sequins, the boy with green eyes, the daughter of Librada.
Hypocrisy
Throughout the play, there is a concern with people’s opinions, gossip, and the desire to appear well. In Bernarda, hypocrisy is manifested in her obsession with cleanliness, the reason she hides María Josefa from gossip. Adela and Martirio pretend to be happy for Angustias’s wedding; Magdalena complains falsely. Hypocrisy is a feature of Martirio throughout the play.
Hate and Envy
Human relationships are dominated by envy and feelings of hatred. Bernarda becomes an object of hatred for her servants and the townspeople, becoming a detestable character. Angustias is hated and envied by the rest of her sisters. Adela accuses Martirio of being driven by hatred and envy. There are continuous insults and innuendo (Magdalena and Angustias with the question of the partition (Act I). Adela teaches us to love the hemaras…)
Social Injustice
Lorca establishes a well-defined social hierarchy. Each character demeans those immediately below them, so human relationships are hierarchical and dominated by petty cruelty from those who occupy the upper positions and resigned submission (taken to hatred) from those below. This inequality affects Bernarda’s daughters; this difference causes the drama, and Pepe chooses Angustias for her money but loves Adela. The meanness is evident in Bernarda, who has no charitable sentiments toward the beggar woman; the maids and dogs are alone and poor, living like animals. Poncia is humiliated by Bernarda, who reminds her of her mother’s brothel, a past that remains for the now-deceased woman.
Marginalization of Women
Lorca condemns two conflicting female behaviors:
- The morally relaxed (Paca, La Roseta, the daughter of the pound, the prostitute hired by the harvesters). All are condemned morally by their neighbors and live on the fringes of society.
- Those determined by a conception of decency that implies submission to rules that discriminate against women because of men.
Honor
Linked to the issue of appearances, Bernarda’s tour de force moves conventional and rigid principles supported by tradition, requiring immaculate public behavior. Bernarda criticizes Angustias, Poncia, and Adela. That sense of honor is the same that dominates the town and makes possible the lynching of the freed daughter.
Characters
Bernarda
She is authoritarian, dominant, proud, classy, aggressive, violent, uncompromising, petty, hypocritical, hated, and feared. She belongs to the wealthy peasant bourgeoisie. She is feared because her family knows the origin of all the neighbors. She embodies the most restrictive social conventions of Spanish tradition, hence her obsession with appearances, what people will say, and saving the decency of her home. Behind closed doors, she has her own design of seventeenth-century honor. She is characterized by her excessive pride and belonging to a privileged social class. The maid Poncia and her exaggerated talk about her obsession with cleaning and caste pride. Poncia shows her hatred and resentment against her mistress, accumulating over 30 years of service. She serves out of need but detests Bernarda. Bernarda’s hatred is not only manifest in Poncia; according to her, her husband’s relatives attended the funeral because they hated her. Bernarda enters the scene cleaning and imposing silence. Her personality and authority dictate that her daughters spend eight years in mourning. As a widow, Bernarda assumes the role of a man, and there is a point in the play where she is compared to a male. With her tyranny, she intends to safeguard honor, according to the traditional code of honor closely linked to the fear of public opinion. The fear of the neighbors’ gossip demonstrates some features of inhuman cruelty. Bernarda instigates erotic sex and must oppose decency, honor, and virginity. Sexual repression subjects her daughters, which is the trigger for a dramatic conflict. She beats her daughter Angustias for daring to look at a man and later severely reprimands her when she seeks permission to see her boyfriend in the face with powder. But this does not prevent Bernarda from talking and whispering about the decent behavior of others (conversation with Poncia about Paca, La Roseta). In Act I, when the girl says that Pepe el Romano was in the church, Bernarda denies the reality to safeguard the honor of her daughter Angustias. In Act II, when Martirio steals Pepe’s portrait, Bernarda says it was a joke, not accepting the evidence of Martirio’s passion. Bernarda’s decency to keep her family is a question of life and death; she dies when she does not recognize that her daughter Adela has done anything wrong, affirming her position and crying against all evidence that her youngest daughter, Bernarda Alba, has died a virgin.
Daughters
In response to their mother’s tyranny, the daughters adopt attitudes ranging from submission or resignation to rebellion. Seclusion and the absence of men, sexual repression, and a tense environment underscored by the sweltering Andalusian heat explode in the final catastrophe. Angustias, Martirio, and Adela are in love with the same man; they watch each other, release barbs continuously, and their words are always loaded with malicious intent. Poncia holds the key to this behavior: they are women without men among them; there is no love, only what seems to be friendship between Martirio and Amelia. The inequality between the rich Angustias, who is her father’s heir, will be key to the conflict between the sisters.