Journal 12: Antigone Conflict

Anouilh uses the contrasting concepts of beauty and ugliness throughout Antigone to illustrate his definition of tragedy. The obviously beautiful Ismene is constantly compared to more unconventionally beautiful Antigone. While everyone expects Haemon to be in love with Ismene, he instead asks Antigone; while everyone describes Ismene as being beautiful, the children stare at Antigone whenever she walks by. There is this ambiguity that surrounds Antigone and her level of beauty. Creon, on page 43, says that Antigone is ugly for yelling about the futility of hope; Antigone counters this by saying that one only becomes beautiful after all hope has been extinguished and all questions answered, like her father at the end of his life. This idea of beauty-after-anguish conforms to the definition of tragedy that Anouilh presented earlier in the play through Chorus, in that"nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility" (24). Anouilh is, at this point in the novel, using this contrast of beauty and ugliness to parallel the ideas of hope and futility. Those who are beautiful in Antigone's way are also hopelessly trapped, where there are no questions about their destiny or their death. They are peaceful, at rest, tranquil, and beautiful.

Journal 11: Antigone Chorus

In the beginning, the Chorus is more of a distant, storytelling character. Chorus establishes the exposition of the plot in an unbiased way. In the second reading, though, Chorus takes on more of a persona, giving his analysis on the plot of the play. Chorus comments on the structure of tragedies, and the definition of tragedies, something that you don't normally hear from a narrator-type character. And by providing insight to tragedies, Anouilh provides foreshadowing of the sadness to come and the pain the audience will feel. Chorus says that in a tragedy, "there isn't any hope. You're trapped" setting up a mood of despair and, well, hopelessness. Chorus has now set up the audience for the tragic events to come, amplifying the dramatic irony that always seems apparent in tragedies.

Journal 10: Antigone Exposition

List of Events:

1. Oedipus died
2. Eteocles took the throne and refused to give it up to Polynices
3. Polynices led a force against Thebes, civil war ensued
4. Polynices and Eteocles kill each other in battle
5. Creon takes the throne
6. Haemon, Creon's son, proposed to Antigone, who said yes
7. Creon declares that Eteocles will be buried nicely and Polynices will be left out to rot
8. Antigone dresses up in Ismene's clothes and goes to Haemon, and they fight
9. Antigone tells Ismene she is going to bury Polynices and asks for help
10. Ismene doesn't want to, so Antigone buries him alone

Most of these events that take place before the start of the play are announced by the Chorus. The events are described in an unbiased way, allowing the audience to interpret them (the war between Eteocles and Polynices, Creon's decree, etc.) however they want to. Instead of having Antigone, who is on Polynices' side, describe the events in her biased way or Creon, who sided with Eteocles– etc. That would present the plot in a one-sided way, which it is not. Anouilh was careful to do this because he wanted the play to be successful during the Nazi occupation of France, which meant his audience had two distinct audiences on both sides of the conflict. If he showed the events all from Antigone's side, then the French rebels would enjoy the show but not the Nazis. And if he showed it from Creon's side, then vice versa.
His unbiased presentation of the conflict also conforms to the rules of tragedy. Tragic conflicts are between two sides that are equally moral and right, so that in the end, it's tragic either way. So the exposition is set up so that both sides have equal footing and the plot is unbiasedly presented.

Topic Sentence

The character Mother consistently and blatantly accuses others of causing the tragic events which have filled her life, because she actually fears the possibility that she may share some of the blame.

Journal 9: Blood Wedding Themes

List of possible Themes for Blood Wedding:

In Blood Wedding, the author, Frederico Lorca, expresses the theme that...

• humans often desire most what they are unable to attain.
• As seen in the Bride and Leonardo and the Mother, the most. Even the Bridgroom shows this to some extent, by wanting the Bride who doesn't want him back.
• "wallowing" in misery can lead to destruction of yourself and others.
• Seen in the Bride and Leonardo and especially the Mother.
• one who has no family to love (and be loved by) is poor, no matter their material wealth.
• The Mother shows this and even says she is poor because she has no son. There's a lot of contrast between poor and rich throughout the play that could prove this theme.
• people are more compelled to break free from their given societal roles the more constraining their roles are.
• The Bride shows this most, because she is the one that people describe the most as being a certain way and she is the one who breaks the archetype most obviously.

Journal 8: Blood Wedding Setting

Between Act Two and Act Three, the setting changes to further outdoors than in previous acts. The three scenes in the first act all take place inside, in living spaces of the houses of the different families. In the second act, both scenes take place outside the Bride's home; The first takes place on the veranda of her house, the second takes place at the "exterior" of her house. Finally, the third act moves further into the outdoors and into the wilderness. This transition is slow but sure, and takes place as the tension of the plot builds. It seems that the transition from a civil, indoor setting to an outdoor, wild setting parallels the transition from civility to the "barbarism" of blood wars. The atmosphere becomes dark and "murky" in this first scene of Act Three, setting the mood for the dark events to follow. In theatre, it's very important to set the mood for the audience so that the climax has a greater emotional impact.

Journal 7: Blood Wedding Youth

Lorca uses many youthful characters in the second act (young men, young girls) to contrast the other characters in this act. The young characters are joyful, energetic, excited about the events in the second act. But other characters, such as the Bride and the Mother and the Wife and Leonardo, are the exact opposite. They are less exuberant about and less compliant with the wedding of the Bride and the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom goes along with the youth; He enters with the parade of young people in the first scene, and he exits with the young men in the second scene, showing that he is associated with their feelings, whereas the Bride resists and repels the young girls who try to help and laugh with her, showing her resistance to the happiness and excitement of the occasion. Similarly, the other older characters are much more anxious or unhappy throughout the second act. The exception to this would be the Maid, who is much older than the rest, but longs to dance and party with the young characters. The Bridegroom, though, flatters her and believes she should be included in the festivities. By doing this, he includes her in the youthful group, thus showing the contrast between the happy, content characters and the miserable characters in this play.

Journal 6: Blood Wedding Misery

In this play, the "miserable" characters would most obviously be the Mother, the Bride, and the Wife. The Mother displays her misery by constantly speaking of her dead son and husband, and wishing there was some better form of justice for their killers. She wants revenge that's greater than a prison cell but isn't able to because of the law, and she won't loose her only remaining son by sending him on a revenge mission. Once she has lost her final son, she only desires to be alone in her misery, which she likely achieves after the end of the play.
The Bride, displays her misery by her tone, generally, when speaking to the Maid. She seems irritated, angry, unhappy, and more after she becomes engaged to the Bridegroom. In the end of the play, she describes how her passion had been like sores on her body, and how the thing she desired to heal them as Leonardo. She had not been with Leonardo before because everyone else desired her to be with a wealthy, "good" man like the Bridegroom, and because Leonardo was already married with a child.
Finally, the Wife is obviously miserable, because she spends a lot of time in this play weeping. She is likely miserable because she is married to Leonardo, who is not a kind or compassionate man, and because she does not have a very easy life, as they are not very economically stable, apparently. It seems that she desires Leonardo to be a good man and to have a steady job and to treat herself and others well, but she is unable to change Leonardo and make him the way she wants him to be.
A less obviously miserable character is Leonardo. He is angry at everyone, all the time, which can be a manifestation of depression and misery. He yells at everyone, he works his horse to death, and neglects the feelings of others because he is so consumed by his own unhappiness. He wants to be with the Bride, and is obviously still in love with her. He cannot be with her because he is married, and because the Bride is getting married.

Journal 5: Blood Wedding Archetypes

I feel that Lorca tries to break archetypes in Blood Wedding, even though he (somewhat ironically) labels the characters with their title rather than a name. He does this to contrast their title, endowed by their culture or society, with their true feelings and desires. A great example of this is the Bride. Everyone else says she's a "good girl" and will make a "good wife" because she embroiders and keeps quiet. But she obviously breaks free of these assumptions that society has made of her by running away with Leonardo and succumbing to her desires. The Mother character is also a break from the societal norm. Generally, mothers are supposed to be loving and caring and accepting. While the Mother is loving and caring of her son, she is also very angry and revenge-driven. So when the Bride runs away, she calls (basically) for all-out war in her town and sends her son off to kill another man, something that she should be sensitive to, since her son and husband were killed. But she does it anyway.
Both of these characters illustrate how Lorca believes people are more than their given roles in society. A bride is more than just a Bride, a mother is more than just a Mother, etc. He portrays round, realistic characters and their influence in society.

Journal 3: Blood Wedding Symbols

One of the symbols I noticed emerging in the first scene was the symbol of flowers. In this scene, it is used mostly in conjunction with the idea of life. The Mother describes her husband or son as having "life like a flower in his mouth" (6), which is pretty straightforward. She also describes her husband and son later as being "two men who were like geraniums" (7) before their death. Obviously, flowers symbolize life in this scene as well as in later ones. The flowers that the Bride wears on her wedding day are symbolic of the new life she is starting with a new man, that she does not wish to start. That's why she doesn't want to marry the Bridegroom. Similarly, the vineyard the Bridegroom recently bought is described as blooming or budding in the first scene and beyond, which connects to this same idea of starting a new life. I don't believe any flowers were brought to the funeral at the end, which further proves that flowers really symbolize life. Depending on their uses throughout the rest of the play, we will see how these flowers relate to death and themes on life.

Another major symbol in this scene is girls, or the female gender. The mother talks about how she wants a girl so she can "embroider, and make lace, and be at peace"(11), and she says that she wishes her son had been a girl (7). She and her neighbor discuss how the Bride is a "good girl", and the Bridegroom makes assumptions that, because the Bride is a girl, she must have thought carefully about who she was going to marry (9). I'm not sure yet exactly what the female gender symbolizes in Lorca's play, but it does seem to have a relationship to the overarching motif of fate/destiny throughout the play. One cannot choose their gender (on another note, one also cannot change their blood), even if their mother wishes they were different. The Mother likely wishes her son had been born a girl because she feels a daughter would have a better chance of living, unlike her husband and her first son. This is proved later in the play, when the Bride tells Leonardo she won't be killed for running away but he will. By the end of the piece, almost all the male characters are dead, except the Bride's father who was not a lead character anyway. This shows some gender imbalance, that may parallel the gender imbalance that Lorca found in his time.