SHORT SUMMARY of Blood Wedding by Federico García LORCA

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One of the best known plays of Federico Garcia Lorca is "Blood Wedding", a tragedy that was published in the year 1931 and that it was inspired by real events, a crime that took place in Nijar in 1928. It is a work that is set in the most rural Andalusia and that, therefore, is considered as a authentic jewel of Spanish manners where Lorca brings together elements of folklore and tradition Andalusian. In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to discover a complete summary of "Blood Wedding" So that, in this way, you can delve better into this work by Lorca and know both the plot, the characters and the main ideas of the piece. We started!

Index

1. Introduction to Bodas de Sangre by Federico García Lorca
2. First Act of Blood Wedding
3. Summary of Act 2 of Blood Wedding
4. Summary of Blood Wedding, Act 3
5. Main characters of Blood Wedding

Before starting with the summary of "Blood Wedding" and its argument it is important to contextualize this play. It is a play that was written by the poet and playwright

One of the most outstanding characteristics of "Blood Wedding" is that it is a work that mix both prose and verse although, according to many scholars, it is believed that the scenes in verse were intended to be sung by the protagonists. The plot is developed in three acts and the main characters are not individualized, that is, they do not even have names: they are called The Boyfriend and The Bride; With this resource, Lorca is creating character-types that will help him to launch a message much deeper than that of the story itself.

The main topic of "Blood Wedding" is the relationship between love and death although, also, we find subtopics such as legendary traditions or myths that give a much more traditional and fantastic contribution to the narrative. During the play we will find many customs typical of the Andalusian region and with very frequent symbols in Lorca's literary production, such as the symbol of the knife.

We begin this summary of "Blood Wedding" talking about the first act of the play. As we have already mentioned, the internal structure of this theatrical piece is divided into 3 acts and, the first of all of them, has three frames.

This act begins with a conversation carried out by The Groom and his mother since he intends to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Before ending the conversation, her son will ask her mother for a knife but, in the end, she will refuse because she will remember the violent death suffered by her other children and her husband.

As soon as The Boyfriend disappears from the scene, the mother will start talking to a neighbor about her future daughter-in-law. She still does not know her but her neighbor does and tells her that, previously, she was the girlfriend of Leonardo Félix, the son of the family who caused the death of her own children and her husband. Although the mother worries, she later decides not to give more importance to the matter because she has been involved in this crime for many years.

In this first act we find a song that Leonardo's mother-in-law sings to cradle her son. This song is nothing but an omen of what will happen; here we leave you a fragment:

The wounded legs,

The frozen manes,

inside the eyes

a silver dagger.

He was going down to the river.

Oh, how they got down!

Blood ran

Stronger than water.

At the end of this act, Leonardo learns that his ex-girlfriend, The Bride, is about to get married and his new wife finds out at that moment that she was the former girlfriend of her current husband.

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We continue with this summary of "Blood Wedding" to focus now on Act 2 of that play. Here Lorca tells us about the journey that The Bridegroom undertakes with his mother to go and ask his girlfriend for her hand. They have to travel through a very wide terrain since La Novia's father lives in the drylands. The man will accept the marriage proposal and The Bride will also accept it.

The Bridegroom, on his visit, will have brought some gifts to his future wife and, as soon as he leaves the house, the maid burns with the desire to see what he has given her. However, The Bride has no interest she opens the gifts and the maid detects that this lack of interest may be due to the fact that she does not really want to marry.

The maid will tell you that at 3 in the morning she saw Leonardo, her ex-boyfriend, in the window of her house, on her horse. The Bride will not believe the woman but, at night, she will look out the window and she will find that Leonardo is indeed there. He does not realize that she has seen him but The Bride will be left with the uncertainty inside of her.

Just the day before the wedding we find a very revealing scene: the maid will be doing the hairstyle tests to The Bride and this, instead of being excited and happy, she will show she very upset and upset. When the maid asks what is wrong with her, the girl will admit that she, although she loves The Boyfriend, The truth is that the step of marriage scares you a bit since it is an important step and definitive.

The wedding day, the first guest that she arrives at the celebration is neither more nor less, that Leonardo himself. As soon as he sees her girlfriend, he will ask him what he meant to her, a question that will make the girl stagger and for which he will end up asking her to leave. The maid will try to interrupt this conversation but she will not be necessary because Leonardo ends up leaving the way for The Bride to marry by saying:

I got married.

Get married now.

And to finish this summary of "Blood Wedding" we have to place ourselves now in Act 3, that is, in the final development of the plot. We are on the wedding day, the bride and groom have already said "Yes, I do" and we are in the middle of the banquet and the celebration. The Bride, at one point, tells her newly released husband that she has to rest for a while because she is exhausted, however, in reality she will run away with Leonardo.

As soon as The Bridegroom realizes the deception, he will go out with his horse to look for his wife and his traitorous lover. She will go into the woods and, in one scene, the moon will personify she and she will reach out to the Groom saying the following:

Who is hiding? Outside I say!

Not! They will not be able to escape!

I will make the horse look

a diamond rush.

Therefore, the Moon reveals to us that she is going to illuminate the forest so that The Bridegroom can see better and find the two traitors. The two escaped lovers will appear on the scene and The Bride will say that she does not want to return with The Bridegroom and that she will only go with him if she is by force. She ends up stating that she loves Leonardo and that only death can separate her from him. Outside the scene there is some screaming and, finally, a she begs that will symbolize death.

Later, the beggar will go to Los Novios' house and indicate to the relatives that she has met with two dead men In the woods.

The end of "Blood Wedding" is the arrival of The Bride covered in blood at the house of her mother-in-law. She says that she has come so that they kill her for her sins but that, no matter how much she ran away with Leonardo, she is still honored. She defends that she is not like that, that she has been carried away by a man's fault. This image of the woman victim of love and passion is accepted by the mother-in-law who ends up embracing the Bride and crying, together with her, the tragedy of her life.

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Now that you have been able to know the whole summary of "Blood Wedding", let's talk briefly about the main characters of the play. Here is a list of the most representative of this theatrical piece:

• Girlfriend: she is a woman who gets carried away by her feelings without taking others into account. She is an impulsive person with a lot of character that she is the trigger for the whole plot.
• The boyfriend: he is a man in love and with good intentions who only wants to marry his girlfriend. But in the end he will be corrupted by love and pain and end up murdering Leonardo.
• Mother: is a character who has a great feeling of protection towards his children. He is closely linked to fidelity to the land, to the family and to the blood. He is a very patient, strong and brave person so his family comes first of all.
• The maid: He is a very representative character of the time and also very typical in Spanish theater. She is the "ally" of the bride, the counselor and the protector. A friend-sister who wants the best for herself and who cares about her well-being.
• Father of the bride: represents the "business" that had with weddings and marriages in Spain in the early twentieth century. And it is that he is more interested in the lands that his future son-in-law has than in the happiness of his own daughter. She doesn't even realize that his daughter is not in love with him.
• Leonardo: he is a selfish and dishonest character. Out of jealousy or a sense of possession, he ends up harming The Bride's life and abandoning his own wife. He is a passionate character and he ends up committing the worst crime a person can do by murdering El Novio. It is important to note that Leonardo is the only character to whom Lorca gives his own name and, therefore, is an essential element of the plot.

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If you want to read more articles similar to Blood Wedding Summary, we recommend that you enter our category of Reading.

• García Lorca, F. (2018). Blood Wedding.
• del Valle, L. T. G. (1971). "Blood Wedding "and its tragic elements. Archivum: Journal of the Faculty of Philology, (21), 95-120.
• Pinto, F. C. (1969). For an analysis of "Blood Wedding". Signs Magazine, 3 (1), 97.