The House of Bernarda Alba
Federico Garcia Lorca was born in 1898 and died in 1936, he lived through one of the most troubling times of Spain's history. He grew up in Granada, Spain, and enjoyed the lifestyle and countryside of Spain. His father was a wealthy farmer and his mother was a school teacher and encouraged his love of literature, art, and music. He was an extremely talented man. A respectable painter, a fine pianist, and an accomplished writer. He was close friends with some of Spain's most talented people, including musician Manuel de Falla, and painter Salvador Dali. Lorca was a very liberal man who lived un dictatorship for most of his life. However, in 1931 Spain turned into more of a democracy, and was called "The Second Spanish Republic." However, fascist leader, Francisco Franco, was trying to gain control of Spain. Known as a leftist, Lorca was killed by Franco's forces. What are considered to be his three most important plays, referered to as folk tragedies were: Blood Wedding, Yerma, and the House of Bernarda Alba. They really drove home his feelings of the Spanish culture, and, in particular, its treatment of women.
"The House of Bernarda Alba" is set in Spain in the 1940's. It is definitely a very dramatic and very tragic play. Bernarda Alba is the tyrannical mother of five girls: Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martitio, and Adela. At the opening of the play, we find out that Bernarda's husband has died, and the family is supposed to be in mourning for eight years. The trouble is that only Magdalena actually loved her father. The main focus of this play is to show just how unfair and unjust life was for Women in Spain during this time. Of the five daughters there is only one man who fit the bill according to Bernarda. His name is Pepe el Romano. He is supposed to marry Angustias, simply because she is the oldest and that's the way things are supposed to be. She is also the one to inherit her father's money. Pepe would come to the house and meet with Angustias, but we soon find out that he had something going on with another sister. He would meet with Angustias for a little while and then go and spend time with Adela, the youngest and most attractive of the sisters. This comes out when the other sisters say they hear Pepe leave at four in the morning, but Angustias insists that she only talked with him unt...
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...e story unfolds in a very neutral and unbiased manner. We see things happen and get to make our choice as to who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. I have no doubt in my mind that Lorca very well knew what he wanted the reader to think, but he didn't force anything down our throats. We hate Bernarda for what we saw her do, and how others acted around her. She truly was a woman that throughout the play failed to show one redeaming quality. It can be argued that she did what she did out of love for her family and respect for her husband, but I don;t buy it. She did what she did out of fear. She was afraid of what the public would say. She gave off the aura of a big powerful woman, but in reality she was small and weak. She demanded that her family mourn for eight years not because she felt that was proper or because she couldn't face the world without her husband, but because she felt that it would give her family the best reputation. She did this in spite of all of her children's happiness. Those are the reasons we hated Bernarda, we didn't need to be told, we saw it with our own eyes. That is the sign of a good playwright; the ability to show without telling.
...g his time period to show his audience that corrupt, unharmonious love is detrimental to Spanish society. However, both of these plays were never performed nor published during this time period, and as the Duke says in Punishment Without Revenge, “A play, Ricardo, is a mirror to all men…. The truth is simply the majority of men would willingly ignore the truth about themselves” (P. 178-179) This line shows that perhaps the reason these plays weren’t performed during the time period is because of the truth they held within their plots that the audiences of the time were not ready to accept, which Lope was very much aware of. If Spanish society were to accept that their ideas of true love were selfish and detrimental during this time, it would raise many other questions about Spanish society that neither the people nor the government were prepared or willing to answer.
In the plays Antigone and A Doll's House, the playwrights discuss gender roles and how they relate to the characters in each individual play. Antigone, by Sophocles, follows a young girl who defies a law issued by King Creon against burying her brother, who fought against their town in the recent war. Creon orders her to be executed, but she ends up committing suicide. In A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen, a wife named Nora takes out a loan by herself, unacceptable for a woman during that time period, and tries to appease the lender who threatens to reveal her loan. In the end, Nora's husband, Torvald, finds out about the loan and Nora ends up leaving him. In each of these plays, Sophocles and Ibsen offer insight into the problems faced by women who are independent, stubborn, and brave.
William Shakespeare said: “Women may fall when there's no strength in men” (Romeo and Juliet). Throughout history gender role have been a big, whether someone is a feminist or someone believes there is no equality between males and females; everyone has different opinions when it comes to the matter of gender roles. The same thing can be said about William Shakespeare who was a feminist (Shakespeare of Stratford). This ideology can be seen in his play Much Ado about Nothing. In this comedy Shakespeare focuses on two pairs of lovers named Claudio and Hero who are set to be married in a week but before their marriage day, they plan to conspire with Don Pedro, the prince of Aragon to trick their friends Beatrice and Benedick to admit their love for each other. Don John, the brother of Don Pedro, meanwhile plots to prevent marriage of Claudio and Hero by accusing Hero of being unfaithful. Don John initially succeeds in his plan as Hero is accused and ashamed at the marriage ceremony, but at the end Claudio and Hero are united and marry each other. Also, Beatrice and Benedick finally declare their love for each and dance at the end of the play. Shakespeare uses a lot of sources for this comedy and one of them is “Orlando Furioso” written in 1591, which gave Shakespeare the idea of Hero and Claudio’s marriage and Don John’s plot to prevent it. Another source Shakespeare used to write the play is the courtier written in 1588, which gave him the idea of the romance between Beatrice and Benedick. And also “La Prima de la Novelle” written in 1554 by Matteo Bandello gave Shakespeare the idea of putting the setting in Messina, Italy (Shakespeare in quarto). Because Shakespeare was a feminist, some of the women appear as supporting and central...
As unemployment and inflation strengthened poverty throughout the country, especially in the rural outskirts, in the city a new political movement, threatening the long established oligarch-military complex began to develop. When the radio began to announce that opposition’s, PDC candidate, Duarte was sweeping up votes, the radio was cut and when the transmission, the army government’s choice, Molina, was ahead. The blatant fraud encouraged liberal junior and jealous senior officers to stage a coup, attempting to place Duarte in power. After receiving help from forces in the Central American Defense Council (CONDECA), the which was formed in 1963 under the influence the United States to protect Cental America against “possible communist aggression,” and US military advisors, the senior military command put down the coup attempt. (___) The United States
According to Elizabethan society, the center of Olivia’s dilemma with her marriage was ensuring her wealth, not marrying a man she loved (Joseph 170). Social class increases division among individuals in society. This play “ is not the story of a Juliet's or an Orlando's love .., but of the very realistic struggles and intrigues over the betrothal of a rich Countess, whose selection of a mate determines the future” (170). Readers looking past these boundaries created by class and gender, can find striking similarities in emotions characters have for each other. The personal struggles the characters face in this play demonstrate the obstacles that individuals faced because of their gender or place in the social hierarchy.
Semantics, in Hume’s mind, is the reason for the dispute between free will and determinism. In short, Hume believed that differences in the definitions of liberty and necessity cause people to choose sides, when, in actuality, both sides can be correct. In addition to this mutual inclusivity, Hume also believed that the common definitions of liberty and necessity coincide, a view that eventually led him to look to redefine liberty and necessity in order to demonstrate that both undoubtedly exist together in our world.
Christopher Schmidt-Nowara. "Politics and Ideas in Latin American Independence." Latin American Research Review 45, no. 2 (2010): 228-235. http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed November 14, 2012).
Pedro Calderon de la Barca is a well-known playwright during the early years of theatre in Spain. Calderon’s debut as playwright was Amor, honor y poder. By 1635, Calderon was recognized as the best Spanish dramatist of the 1600s. Calderon initiated the Spanish Golden Age theatre because of his dedicated work to perfecting his craft. He was a perfectionist who often revisited and reworked his plays after they were first performed for theatregoers. The famous playwright was also known for his symbolism he inserted in his plays. For example one metaphor he incorporated was making a fall into disgrace, the fall representing dishonor. In addition most of his plays had been influenced by his Jesuit education.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet centres on the relationship between two young protagonists, but much of what occurs during the play is as a result of the inequality between men and women. Juliet’s arranged marriage with Paris, as well as the ancient feud between Capulets and Montagues eventually contributes to the deaths of their children.
The "natural" or "normative" structures in Spain during Lope's life include Catholicism, monarchy, imperialism, and hierarchical class structures. Each of these reflect themselves in Fuenteovejuna. “Rodrigo, you would do well to surprise those how say that the cross you bear is too grave a weight for your weak shoulders.” Consider the Counts of Uruena from whom you are descended and let the laurels they won urge you to equal fame.” (490) This specific quote touches upon the idea and importance of lineage when Rodrigo becomes the next...
In Federico García Lorca’s La Casa de Bernarda Alba, a tyrant woman rules over her five daughters and household with absolute authority. She prevents her daughters from having suitors and gives them little to no freedom, especially with regard to their sexualities and desires. They must conform to the traditional social expectations for women through sewing, cleaning, as well as staying pure and chaste. While, as John Corbin states in The Modern Language Review, “It was entirely proper for a respectable woman in [Bernarda’s] position to manage her household strictly and insist that the servants keep it clean, to defend its reputation, ensure the sexual purity of her daughters, and promote advantageous marriages for them,” Bernarda inordinately
In Lorca's "Blood Wedding", the play is adapted from true events, The Níjar murder case. The play was written in 1932 and first performed in Madrid in March 1933. The play deals with the Spanish culture, and how all women and men have specific roles for each in this culture and it has an effective image about traditions, manners and how they were taken seriously in that period of time. In addition to these topics, this play also consists of a strong and a coarse love story.
...itors know nothing of harvesting methods, distribution, and traditional cultural uses of red coral. Hence, an interpretative museum devoted to Mediterranean red coral could be designed to lead the tourist/visitor on their own road of discovery. So, there is a plan by Linda Joyce Forristal to make Mediterranean red coral as an object of marine eco-tourism and cultural heritage with special emphasis on Croatia. To be specific to build a Red Coral Museum. This proposal has been presented during conference organized by Reinventing a Tourism Destination International Conference/ Institute for Tourism on Oct 19, 2002.
The roles of society included expectations,family inheritance, and how conflicts were dealt with. Expectations helped develop and correlate family inheritance. While family inheritance brought burdens and expectations to fill.The conflicts which bring the part of responsibility of family inheritance. Thus the motifs which foreshadowed what would happen in the play and what effect it had.The motifs were knifes that brought destruction and death. While greed brought the marriage together and conflict. Which then revealed the themes of cycle of life,the progression of time,choice, and fate. Lorca’s message is duties to family’s needs verse duties to self. Characters feel obligated to fufill familys wants and needs like the Bride to fulfill her family 's needs.Also the Bridegroom which followed everything and attended his mother’s needs.While Leonardo is different he goes against society which causes conflict of the Bride putting her own needs first.Now see the change which Lorca is trying to convey, that there is now the old generation verse the new generation.The old caring about their status and view to society.While the new is finding your own happiness.Over the course of the play conflict,roles,and motifs are developed in within the
With new alternatives and methods for the contribution the humanity the traditional style of animal testing is unessesary. With these new developments the lives of millions of animals can be spared from death and abuse. Scientsist can perform more reliable products without the hassle of failing the clinical tests with thier animal experiments.