Juliette Arreguin
Period4a
Good Morality into Tragedy
Keeping a good reputation is hard on a person’s life, but for Bernarda and Trovald
it is a necessity. In the two plays, House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Lorco and A
Doll’s House by Henirk Ibsen, the main characters have similar ideas towards how they
want things to be and how they should appear to others. The main characters believe that
keeping a good reputation and appearance is due to the morality that is passed down to a
person from their past generation like it is hereditary, but when trying to keep a good,
reputation the main characters lost something important to them.
The main characters, Bernarda and Trovald, treat the family the same but in
different ways. Bernarda is the head of the house and she bosses people around, like a
dictator, to have certain things in a certain way. Pg. 199(Bernarda) “Less screaming and
more work! You should have seen to it everything was cleaner to receive the mourners.
Get out! This is not where you belong.” She does this because she cares about her
reputation and what people will think of her. She also believes that morality is passed
down from family members to other family members. Pg. 210 (Bernarda) “That one takes
after her aunt. Soft and slippery – making sheep’s eyes any little barber who flattered
them!” Then there is Trovald. Trovald is the man in the house and he wants his wife to do
the basic “women” role so that they seem to be the perfect family. He is maintaining a
reputation and he believes that good morality is hereditary. Pg.5 “Always on the look-out
for money, whenever you can lay your hands on it; but as soon as you’ve got it, it just
seems to slip through your fingers. You never seem to know what you’ve done with it.
Well, one must accept you as you are. It’s in the blood. Oh yes, it is, Nora. That sort of
thing is hereditary.”
Trovald’s and Bernarda’s just want the best for their family to the point that is it
out of control. This is mainly due to their personalities. They both don’t want to hear
something bad about their family that can break them a part. For Trovald when he got
that letter from Krogstad blackmailing Nora, he didn’t want to think about the problem
anymore after it was resolve; he just wanted everything to go back to normal. Pg. 78
(Helmer) “Tomorrow you will see everything quite differently. Soon everything will be
just as it was before.” For Bernarda, she didn’t want to hear that one of her daughters,
Adele, was having an affair with her other daughter’s finance. Pg. 255 “Here we go
again! You go out of your way to give me bad dreams And I don’t want to listen, because
if things turn out the way you say they will, I’ll have to claw you to pieces!” They are
both in denial of the truth and just pretend everything is normal. Also they put off
problems till the very end. Trovald never had a “serious” talk with his wife till the end
when she decided to leave him. Pg. 79 (Nora) “ Eight whole years – no, more, ever since
we first knew each other- and never have we exchanged one serious word about serious
things.” Bernarda didn’t want to fix the problem between her daughters, Adele and
Angustias, that Adele is having an affair with Angustias finance. They put off their
problems because they care about their appearances toward society. They hide their
problems with appearances by dressing in nice clothing, furniture and careers. Bernarda
wanted her daughters to buy fancy lace to embroider their clothing, and Trovald was a
hard working man and wanted everybody to know how hard he worked. Actually they
both wanted people to know how hard they work and how perfect their families are.
Bernarda and Trovald believe that good morality is passed down from
generations, like it’s hereditary. Bernarda wants nothing but good morality surrounding
her family. She doesn’t want bad morality because then she believes she will have bad
reputation. Pg. 253(Bernarda) “(Loud) And I would do it a thousand times again! My
blood will never mix with that of the Humanas family – not as long as I love! His father
was a field hand.” She thinks it’s not allowed in her community especially in her family.
That’s why her daughters still live at home because Bernada doesn’t want to marry off
her daughters to just anybody; she wants to marry them off to a man that is richer and
have better reputation than them, but in their community it is hard to find a man like that.
Trovald also believes that is heredity but he also believes that bad morality can poison a
family; that if one person in the family starts telling lies it will soon spread into the
children, and then the family will fall apart. Pg. 33 (Helmer) “A for of lies like that in a
household, and it spreads disease and infection to every part of it. Every breath the
children take in the kind of house is reeking with evil germs.” He also believes that the
person who will poison the children would be most likely being the mother.
There is many problems trying to keep a good reputation and it is very difficult.
Bernarda and Trovald make it seem like it is a simple thing to do but as the play goes on
it seems to crumble apart. Bernarda avoided the problem with her daughter’s affair and
denied the whole issue, but when finally dealt with the problem, she handled it badly, and
it cost her daughter’s, Adele’s, life. Pg. 288 (Bernarda) “Cut her down. My daughter has
died a virgin. Carry her to her room and gress her in white. No one is to say a thing. She
died a virgin. Send word for the bells to toll twice at dawn.” The same thing happened
with Trovald but he didn’t cost anybody’s life though. He didn’t want to talk about
serious problems about the marriage to his wife, and when the problem about her
borrowing money without consulting him about it was resolved, he just wanted to forget
about it and move on without having a serious discussion about it, but his wife, Nora, did.
Due to his actions, his wife left him. Also she left because he just kept on denying about
her lying and her keeping secrets. Pg. 77 (Helmer) “Let me see [He glances at the IOU.]
No, I don’t want to see it. I don’t want it to be anything but a dream. [He tears up the
IOU and both letters, throws all the pieces into the stove and watches them burn.] Well,
that’s the end of that.”
Keeping up with a good reputation destroyed these two characters at the end.
They both lost someone every dear to them for something that is impossible to always
maintain. This was both of the authors’ messages that a person can lose something more
than just their reputation.