Rural Spain: 1920/30

The Plays

• Lorca’s most famous plays were based around women in rural spain

• The House of Bernada Alba

• Yerma

• Blood Wedding

• Lorca focuses on the oppression of women and the need to stick to the status quo of society

• It would seem Lorca’s trilogy highlights everything he hated about this time in Spain’s history

A Divided Nation

• Spain entered the 20th Century as a constitutional monarchy

• Ex-peasants became the new middle class and wanted to see a left-wing socialist government take the country forward

• Industrialisation led to a larger working-middle class who would no longer tolerate a old class hierarchy

• This traditional groups wanted to maintain the aristocracy and control of the Catholic Church over social and educational topics

• Spain was still heavily Catholic at this point despite groups opposing the Churches control; this is where Lorca’s theme of the oppression of women stems from

• Lorca, himself, was left-wing and used government funding from his new friends in power to set up La Barraca

Lorca’s Influence

• The play’s original name was Bodas de Sangra which translates to “Wedding of Blood”

• The title and theme came from a murder in 1928 in the small town of Nijar

• A young woman Francisca Canada Morales ran off with her cousin, Francisco Montes Canada

• Her bridegroom’s brother killed Francisco

• Lorca kept the clipping until he came to write the play

A Dictatorship

• During the era of WW2, Francisco Franco was funded by Hitler and Mussolini and waged a Civil War in Spain

• It lasted 3 years

• Franco was the victor and Spain became a dictatorship

• Lorca was arrested and assassinated in 1936; Franco saw him as a threat to traditionalism and the dictatorship

• During the Civil War and the infancy of the dictatorship Lorca became more liberal and outspoken

• In a way, his plays were satirical and used to show society what life was like at this time in rural Spain

Any Questions?