The symbol of black clothing
When the neighbor walks into the house to talk with mother and she is described as "dressed in black with a shawl wrapped around her head" (pg. 6) When the pair talk they discuss how the neighbor's son's hands had been cut off by the "machine" and I think Lorca specifically chose to have the women dressed in black to reflect her emotions about her son's incidents. I find this interesting because I thought someone said in class that white was worn for sadder occasions and black was for happier occasions (I am not entirely sure) but this would be an example of when black clothing was worn at a sad occasion. Also the mother had just been discussing her husbands death with the bridegroom when the woman entered so I think that black clothing shows up as a symbol of misfortune from the beginning of the play whether or not it is supposed to be a happy color in spanish culture.
The symbol of grapes
Grapes come up early in the first scene when the bridegroom asks for a knife to cut some grapes. From there the mother goes into some sort of mental break down about how knives kill things. Later on however the bridegroom talks about how he saved up enough money to buy his lady friend a vineyard. I thought that it was interesting how the grapes are used to put the mother in a position to recall the memories of her late husband but then they come up again to give her a vision of her son's new family and how the family name will continue. I am not sure how important family names were during this time, but it seems like in the first scene the grapes are the connection between the family name dying with the death of the husband and the beginning of the new life with the bridegroom and his family.
I like how you discussed two symbols that I never really identified in the beginning! It was really well done! Do you think that black could be related back to the theme of decay? I also thought your idea's on what the grapes symbolized was interesting and I agree that it recalls memories of her husband.
ReplyDeleteThat's good Jackson, and yeah I think you are right about the color black because when the bride wears it at her wedding, shortly after she runs off and then the two men die.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of looking at the color black, but now that you pointed it out, I can really see how it is evident in the play as a whole. I'm going to look for the color black now, and at the end when everyone's dead the mother has "black bitterness".
ReplyDeleteI never really saw black until later in the play, but it's interesting to find it was used early as well. Although it isn't black clothing, I noticed that black was also used to describe how the children were black from the sun.
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