Archetypal Symbols in "Bodas de Sangre"

Abstract

NORTHROP FRYE defines archetype as a repeated or recurring symbol, which, without being a commonplace, tends to enrich tradition and establish a common basis for both the poet and his reader., The unity of Garcia Lorca's writings, poetry and drama, is best revealed in the repetition of these archetypal symbols. They can be seen within a single work, within his entire canon, and reaching beyond it, to the tradition, popular or literary, to which he belongs.2 Bodas de sangre is mythic in the sense noted by Susanne Langer: Myth . . . is a recognition of natural conflicts, of human desire frustrated by non-human powers, hostile oppression or contrary desires; it is a story of the birth, passion and defeat by death which is man's common fate. Its ultimate end is not wishful distortion of the world, but serious envisagement of its fundamental truths; moral orientation, not escape.3 But the fundamental myth of Bodas de sangre-man struggling against the internal forces of desire and jealousy, and against the external forces of death and sterilitywould be nothing were it not clothed in Lorca's rich poetry; and that poetry is woven of elements learned in the poet's apprenticeship which produced Libro de poemas, Canciones, Poema del cante jondo, and especially the Romancero gitano. The rhetoric and imagery he created in these books reach their fullest flowering in the final tragedies. Lorca's natural habitat, from his childhood on, was the stage; when that love combined with his great poetic gift, the convergence was one of the remarkable literary events of our time. Perhaps the most significant features of Lorca's rhetoric are his brilliant metaphors and his use of archetypal symbols. From Bodas de sangre, I have selected the following archetypes: navaja, caballo, luna, sangre, trigo and azahar. Most of these archetypes appear, as such, in other works by Garcia Lorca.4 The play opens and closes with the madre's insistence on the image of navaja or cuchillo.5 The knife is whatever kills; it is the most prominent negative symbol in the play. Madre thus admonishes novio in the first act: