Questions on Act III of Blood Wedding
1. Do the Moon and the Beggar Woman give an indication that Leonardo and the
Bride will escape ?
2. How is the lullaby of the horse in Act I, Scene 2, a portent of what occurs in the
forest ?
3. Who is the Beggar Woman ?
4. Who or what does the Moon symbolize ?
5. How is the relationship between Leonardo and the Bride different from the one
between the Bridegroom and the Bride ?
6. a) In what setting does Scene I, Act II, open ? b) What does this setting represent ?
7. Summarize the comments of the three woodcutters in Scene I.
8. In the Moon’s monologue in Scene I, to what does « blood » refer ?
9. Whom is the woodcutter personified as ?
10. Who gives the Bridegroom directions to find his wayward bride and Leonardo ?
11. How do we know that the Bridegroom will not survive the encounter with
Leonardo ?
12. What happens when Leonardo and the Bride realize that they are hemmed in ?
13. In Scene I, in the fifth instance from the end, where Leonardo speaks, what kind of
imagery is revealed in those lines ?
14. What is the significance of the Beggar Woman opening her cloak at the end of Scene
I?
15. Why does Scene II open in a white room with arches and thick walls ?
16. How does the Beggar Woman invoke images of death in the beginning of Scene II ?
17. How does the Mother rationalize her life now that her remaining son has been
killed ?
18. How does the Mother react to the Bride’s arrival in Scene II ?
19. The play begins and ends with which image? Garcia Lorca creates a landscape so
rustic and primitive that it virtually stands outside of time. There are no modern
objects with which one can place the play in a specific era ; therefore, what object
mentioned in the play can be seen as rather anachronistic ?
20. How can the locale of the forest symbolize both life and death ?
21. Why are the woodcutters a natural choice to report and comment on the pursuit
and the encounter between the Bridegroom and Leonardo and the Bride ?
22. What are the allusions to Christianity in Scene III ?
23. Explain the fates of the Bridegroom, Leonardo, and the Bride.
24. With what does the playwright equate the passion of the couple ?
25. What is ironic about the Mother and the women chanting : « Sweet nails/ Sweet
cross,/ Sweet Name--/ Jesus » ?
26. Give an example of cartharsis in this play.
27. In giving Leonardo Felix the only proper name in the play, how might the
playwright be suggesting that social customs and the conformity they require might
be a problem ?
28. Blood Wedding is not merely about a wedding but about the wedding in the blood of
the antagonistic forces that together compromise the human condition. Explain this
war in the blood on many levels.
29. Explain the ritual of the matador and the bull in a bull fight.
30. Explain the opening of the final scene of the play where the little girls are winding
red wool.
31. In the last phase of the play, how is the Bride likened to nature ?
32. What is an irony at the end of the play ?
33. What are the five lyrical passages in the play ?
34. What symbols does Garca Lorca use to indicate the inevitability of fate in the final
scene ?
35. How is the climax of Act III similar to action in Oedipus Rex ?