2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
