World Literature Essay Number Two:The symbolism of Blood and Water in the play "Blood Wedding"

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World Literature Essay Number Two:

The symbolism of Blood and Water in the play “Blood Wedding”

The two word title of the play “Blood Wedding” by Frederico Garcia Lorca presents both a contradiction and a concurrence. These themes continue throughout the play, and the two words of the title are used to capture the essence of the contrasting movements of its action. The wedding symbolises the harmony of man and woman, and the continuation of life. Blood too symbolises these things, however it also evokes contrasting feelings of violence, death and destruction. Blood represents the strength of the blood ties in families, and promotes the sense of repeating history which is evident throughout the play, as well as fertility and the cyclical nature of life. Used in another way, the literary references to blood create a sense of destiny, the blood choosing the path of the characters.  Blood also represents and is used to express extreme passion in the characters. It also reinforces the violence to which the characters in the play are exposed and take part in.

The strongest symbolic use of blood, which is carried throughout the play, is the link it creates between the characters and their ancestors, and the sense of history being repeated. This is evident from the very beginning of the play, when the mother speaks about the death of her husband and her son. She asks herself why a man would be killed just because he “goes out to his vines or his olives … because they are his passed down to him from his fathers”. The mother is talking to her son, the bridegroom, and so from the beginning we know that his father and brother were both murdered, and thus he is immediately linked by his blood to violence and killing.

Lorca carries this idea further through the next few pages of the play, when the mother is talking about her son’s fiancé. She is very interested to know what the girl’s mother is like, and we learn from the neighbour that “she was very proud”, and that “she never loved her husband”. This knowledge gives the audience a sense of foreboding for the repetition of past events. We know that the mother’s interest in the bride’s mother stems from her belief that this blood relationship will show her what the girl is like. If we accept this point of view, we believe that history may repeat itself, and with the bridegroom already linked by his blood to murder and killing doom seems inevitable.

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Even the wife of Leonardo is a victim of the repetition of family history. Before Leonardo runs away with the bride, the wife suspects that he will not remain faithful, and referring to his lack of loyalty to her she says “it happened to my mother, now it is happening to me”. So there are four characters in the play who are afflicted by the history of their ancestors. The bride’s mother never loved her husband, the bridegroom’s father and older brother were both murdered by members of the Felix family, Leonardo’s ancestors murdered members of the bridegroom’s family, ...

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