The majority of the characters in Blood Wedding invest themselves in the importance of ownership. This is evident in the way the Bridegroom, his mother, and the Bride’s father speak about land, a topic that consumes them and overshadows more important matters. Indeed, their preoccupation with the ownership of land and material items even informs the way they approach the institution of marriage, seeing it as more of a transaction than a celebration of happiness and love. Because of this, the people in the Bride’s life fail to recognize her discontent, instead fervently planning the merging of her and the Bridegroom’s family land and, when that’s settled, making arrangements for the various gifts the Bride will receive. Unimpressed by these material benefits, the Bride makes little effort to conceal her gloominess, but hardly anybody notices her somber attitude. Assuming that she has nothing to be upset about, the people closest to her remain oblivious to her true feelings, unable to fathom that she might want more than land and riches. In turn, Lorca highlights the ways in which greedy fixations on ownership and possession can consume people and keep them from identifying unhappiness, even when it arises in the people closest to them.
For people like the Bride’s father, owning well-maintained land is a badge of honor. Although his own property is covered in dry, stubborn soil, he has managed to eke what he can out of it and is clearly quite proud of this achievement. “In my day this land didn’t even produce esparto,” he tells the Bridegroom’s mother. “I’ve had to punish it, even make it suffer, so it gives us something useful.” He then goes on to say that he wishes he could transport the land owned by the Bridegroom’s mother so that it would be right next to his land, and when the old woman asks why he would want this, he says, “To see it all together. Together, that would be a thing of beauty!” It’s worth noting that this old man is fantasizing not about his daughter’s future happiness, but about the idea of increasing his plot of land. Rather than discussing the actual wedding, he and the Bridegroom’s mother consider the “beauty” of their land. In alignment with this, the Bride’s father later celebrates the prospect of having grandchildren, but his excitement primarily stems from his realization that the children will be able to work on his property. “I want them to have many [children],” he tells the Bridegroom’s mother. “This land needs arms that are not paid for.” When he says this, the audience understands that he’s more interested in maintaining his land for free than he is in paying attention to the specifics of his daughter’s marriage, which, he would realize if he took a moment to think about it, is clearly bound to fail.
The Bride’s marriage is doomed because she cares about more than the worldly possessions she stands to gain by marrying the Bridegroom. When the Bridegroom’s mother first comes to her house to make arrangements with her father, she brings a number of gifts, but the Bride is uninterested in them. After the old woman departs, the Bride’s servant fawns over the presents, begging for the Bride to show her what she has been gifted. However, the Bride says she doesn’t even want to look at the fine stockings her future mother-in-law has given her. “For God’s sake!” the servant says after the Bride snaps at her for so eagerly wanting to handle the gifts. “It’s as if you have no wish to get married.” Although the servant herself is—like the Bride’s father—excited by the idea of ownership, she at least is able to intuit that the Bride has absolutely “no wish to get married.” It is perhaps because she senses the Bride’s apathy regarding possession and ownership that she later tries to emphasize the more emotionally significant elements of marriage, saying, “Such a lucky girl…to be able to put your arms around a man, to kiss him, to feel his weight!” By saying this, she tries to appeal to the Bride’s desire to find actual happiness—not the superficial kind that arises from stockings and landownership and “bunches of flowers,” all of which the Bridegroom and his mother bestow upon her.
The fact that the servant is the only person to notice the Bride’s discontent is yet another indication that everybody else in her life is too focused on what she’s going to gain from the marriage to pay attention to how she actually feels. Even the Bridegroom himself is oblivious to her disinterest in material possessions, as he speaks proudly about the wreath of orange blossoms he gave her to wear. “It’s all made of wax. It’ll last for ever [sic]. I’d like you to have worn them all over your dress.” The pleasure he takes in the fact that the flowers will never die says something about his priorities, as he brags that his wife will be able to own the orange blossoms forever. If he took a moment to consider the matter, though, he might realize that she doesn’t care about orange blossoms. Unlike the Bridegroom, the Bride’s true lover, Leonardo, understands this, as made clear by what he says regarding the flowers: “It shouldn’t be so big. Something smaller would suit her better.” Whereas the Bridegroom only stops to think about whether or not his gift appears valuable, Leonardo considers what the Bride herself likes and wants. This, it seems, is the kind of sensitivity and consideration the Bride is looking for in a partner, which is why she elopes with Leonardo. In this manner, Lorca manages to accentuate how meaningless the concept of ownership is to a person who simply wants happiness. Furthermore, the playwright demonstrates that superficial and materialistic preoccupations only interfere with a person’s ability to sense discontent in their loved ones, as the vast majority of people who care about the Bride fail to note her misery.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Ownership and Unhappiness ThemeTracker
Ownership and Unhappiness Quotes in Blood Wedding
No. I can’t leave your father and your brother here. I have to go to them every morning, and if I leave, one of the Felixes could die, one of the family of murderers, and they’d bury him next to mine. I won’t stand for that. Never that! Because I’ll dig them up with my nails and all on my own I’ll smash them to bits against the wall.
BRIDEGROOM. These are the dry lands.
MOTHER. Your father would have covered them with trees.
BRIDEGROOM. Without water?
MOTHER. He’d have looked for it. The three years he was married to me, he planted ten cherry trees. (Recalling.)
FATHER. In my day this land didn’t even produce esparto. I’ve had to punish it, even make it suffer, so it gives us something useful.
MOTHER. And now it does. Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you for anything.
FATHER (smiling). You are better off than me. Your vineyards are worth a fortune. Each vine-shoot a silver coin. What I’m sorry about is that the estates are…you know…separate. I like everything together. There’s just one thorn in my heart, and that’s that little orchard stuck between my fields, and they won’t sell it to me for all the gold in the world.
[…]
If we could use twenty teams of oxen to bring your vineyards here and put them on the hillside. What a joy it would be!
MOTHER. But why?
FATHER. Mine is hers and yours his. That’s why. To see it all together. Together, that would be a thing of beauty!
MOTHER. My son’s handsome. He’s never known a woman. His name’s cleaner than a sheet spread in the sun.
FATHER. What can I tell you about my girl? She’s breaking up bread at three when the morning star’s shining. She never talks too much; she’s as soft as wool; she does all kinds of embroidery, and she can cut a piece of string with her teeth.
MOTHER. Come! Are you happy?
BRIDE. Yes, señora.
FATHER. You mustn’t be so serious. After all, she’s going to be your mother.
BRIDE. I’m happy. When I say ‘yes’ it’s because I want to.
[…]
MOTHER. […] You know what getting married is, child?
BRIDE (solemnly). I do.
MOTHER. A man, children, and as for the rest a wall that’s two feet thick.
BRIDEGROOM. Who needs anything else?
MOTHER. Only that they should live. That’s all…that they should live!
BRIDE. I know my duty.
SERVANT (combing). Such a lucky girl…to be able to put your arms around a man, to kiss him, to feel his weight!
BRIDE. Be quiet!
SERVANT. But it’s best of all when you wake up and you feel him alongside you, and he strokes your shoulders with his breath, like a nightingale’s feather.
BRIDE (forcefully). Will you be quiet!
SERVANT. But child! What is marriage? That’s what marriage is. Nothing more! Is it the sweetmeats? Is it the bunches of flowers? Of course it’s not! It’s a shining bed and a man and a woman.
SERVANT. It’s no time to be feeling sad. (Spiritedly.) Give me the orange-blossom. (The BRIDE throws the wreath away.) Child! Don’t tempt fate by throwing the flowers on the floor! Look at me now. Don’t you want to get married? Tell me. You can still change your mind. (She gets up.)
BRIDE. Dark clouds. A cold wind here inside me. Doesn’t everyone feel it?
LEONARDO (getting up). I suppose the bride will be wearing a big wreath of flowers? It shouldn’t be so big. Something smaller would suit her better. Did the bridegroom bring the orange-blossom so she can wear it on her heart?
BRIDE (she appears still in petticoats and with the wreath of flowers in place). He brought it.
SERVANT (strongly). Don’t come out like that.
BRIDE. What’s the matter? (Seriously.) Why do you want to know if they brought the orange-blossom? What are you hinting at?
LEONARDO. What would I be hinting at? (Moving closer.) You, you know me, you know I’m not hinting. Tell me. What was I to you? Open up your memory, refresh it. But two oxen and a broken-down shack are almost nothing. That’s the thorn.
BRIDE. […] I’ll shut myself away with my husband, and I’ll love him above everything.
LEONARDO. Pride will get you nowhere! (He approaches her.)
BRIDE. Don’t come near me!
LEONARDO. To keep quiet and burn is the greatest punishment we can heap upon ourselves. What use was pride to me and not seeing you and leaving you awake night after night? No use! It only brought the fire down on top of me! You think that time heals and walls conceal, and it’s not true, not true! When the roots of things go deep, no one can pull them up!
BRIDE. I want to be your wife and be alone with you and not hear any other voice but yours.
BRIDEGROOM. That’s what I want!
BRIDE. And to see only your eyes. And to have you hold me so tight that, even if my mother were to call me, my dead mother, I couldn’t free myself from you.
I want them to have many [children]. This land needs arms that are not paid for. You have to wage a constant battle with the weeds, with the thistles, with the stones that come up from who knows where. And these arms must belong to the owners, so that they can punish and master, so that they can make the seed flourish. Many sons are needed.
Be quiet. I’m certain I’ll find them here. You see this arm? Well it’s not my arm. It’s my brother’s arm and my father’s and my whole dead family’s. And it’s got such strength, it could tear this tree from its roots if it wanted to. Let’s go quickly. I can feel the teeth of all my loved ones piercing me here so I can’t breathe.
You would have gone too. I was a woman burning, full of pain inside and out, and your son was a tiny drop of water that I hoped would give me children, land, health; but the other one was a dark river, full of branches, that brought to me the sound of its reeds and its soft song. And I was going with your son, who was like a child of cold water, and the other one sent hundreds of birds that blocked my path and left frost on the wounds of this poor, withered woman, this girl caressed by fire. I didn’t want to, listen to me! I didn’t want to! Your son was my ambition and I haven’t deceived him, but the other one’s arm dragged me like a wave from the sea, like the butt of a mule, and would always have dragged me, always, always, even if I’d been an old woman and all the sons of your son had tried to hold me down by my hair!
