Blood Wedding- Journal #2

Literary Topics
Prompt: Themes and ideas

In Blood Wedding, Lorca uses the repetition, symbolism and imagery of the knife to carry one of his main ideas. The knife represents death, more than death it represents loss. As a general rule, Mother is the only person who refers to the knife. This is appropriate, and helps to convey the symbol because Mother has lost the most, and continues to do so throughout the play. She lost her husband and her son, and by the end of the play, she looses another son. The knife evolves to represent unfair loss, to represent something being taken from an individual. When Mother says, "I will sleep at last, no longer terrified of guns of knives." (Lorca 100), it is after Bridegroom dies. It shows that she no longer fears knives because she no longer has anything to lose. This suggests two themes. Firstly, that once an individual is alone, with no family, their existence is meaningless. The second idea portrayed is death is the only real way to lose an individual. This is because of the contrast of Mother's reactions when she simply thought that Bridegroom was getting married. He would be taken from her, but he would not be dead. She grieves him more when he is alive than when he is dead. That is what creates the second theme.