La Casa de Bernarda Alba - Character Analysis

Poder, Limpieza, Reputación, Personajes, Obediencia, Debilidad

  • Key Themes:
    • Poder (Power)
    • Limpieza (Cleanliness)
    • Reputación (Reputation)
    • Obediencia (Obedience)
    • Debilidad (Weakness)
  • Other relevant terms:
    • Martirio (Martyrdom)
    • Libertad (Liberty/Freedom)
    • Angustias (Anguish)
    • Riqueza (Wealth)
    • María Josefa
    • Adela
    • La Poncia
    • Decencia (Decency)
    • Bernarda
    • Obstinación (Obstinacy)
    • Pepe el Romano
    • Deseo sexual (Sexual desire)
    • Buen partido (Good match/Catch)
    • Infidelidad (Infidelity)
    • Amelia
    • Magdalena
    • Represión (Repression)
    • Chismes (Gossip)

Prudencia

  • Social Status: Prudencia shares the same social status as Bernarda.
  • Character: Less aggressive than Bernarda; she suffers family problems with resignation.
  • Role: Her dialogue with Bernarda highlights Bernarda's strict social views, especially regarding family honor.
  • Suffering: Prudencia suffers due to inflexible attitudes, unlike Bernarda, who sees a disobedient daughter as an enemy.

Pepe el Romano

  • Impact: He has a profound impact on the plot.
  • María Josefa's View: She describes him as a "gigante" (giant) who will devour the women of the house.
  • Character: Known only through the women's comments, he is portrayed as not a good person.
  • Actions: He courts Angustias for her money and Adela for her youth and beauty.
  • Influence: He attracts the sexually repressed virgins, inciting Adela to rebel against Bernarda, leading to Adela's death.
  • Influence on the Play: Though absent on stage, he is omnipresent in the daughters' minds.
  • Plot Driver: His influence leads to the destruction of Bernarda's carefully constructed edifice to protect her daughters' virginity.
  • Social Standing: He is the most eligible bachelor and socially acceptable to Bernarda for Angustias.
  • Behavior: His visits to two daughters at different times suggest untrustworthiness.
  • Deception: He lies to Angustias and seems unconcerned about the consequences of seducing Adela.
  • Motives: He potentially hopes Adela will become his mistress, regardless of family consequences.

María Josefa

  • Status: Bernarda's mother, considered mad and locked away.
  • Insight: Despite her madness, she speaks truths about Bernarda and her granddaughters.
  • Prediction: She predicts the women will be "devoradas" (devoured) by Pepe el Romano.
  • Desire: She yearns for freedom and dreams of having a child.
  • Symbolism: Her confinement symbolizes a prison within a prison.
  • Yearning: She expresses a desire for freedom and a life without restrictions, including marriage.
  • Maternal Instinct: Her desire for a child reflects the maternal emotions denied to Bernarda's daughters.
  • Prophecy: She predicts none of the daughters will marry.
  • Negative Images: She reinforces negative images of Bernarda ("cara de leoparda" - leopard face), Magdalena ("cara de hiena" - hyena face), and Martirio ("cara de martirio" - face of martyrdom).

Criada (The Maid)

  • Role: A source of information who also has her own perspective on the house.
  • Feelings: She laments the fate of the poor and envies the family's wealth. She is saddened by the death of Bernarda's husband, her secret lover.
  • Observation: She shrewdly notes that Bernarda doesn't understand what's happening between her daughters; she says, "se pone una venda en los ojos" (she puts a blindfold on her eyes).
  • Function: She acts as a foil to La Poncia in the first scene.
  • Insight: She reveals Bernarda's dead husband's wanton behavior and shows awareness of Bernarda's pride and men's power over women.

Magdalena

  • Grief: She is the most affected by her father's death.
  • Sympathy: She seems to care for Adela, calling her "pobrecilla" (poor thing) because Adela still has hope.
  • Disposition: Magdalena is sad and has lost hope for a better life, accepting her fate as a single woman. She knows her life is dominated by "la decencia" (decency), saying, "nos pudrimos por el qué dirán" (we rot because of what people will say); she calls herself cursed, "como todas las mujeres" (like all women).
  • Acceptance: She has lost illusions about her destiny and accepts Bernarda's tyrannical rule.
  • Sympathy: She shows the most sympathy for others, weeping at her father's death and showing affection for Adela.
  • Nostalgia: She longs for the past when life was more enjoyable and gossip didn't hold sway.
  • Resignation: She has resigned herself to spinsterhood.
  • Key quotation: Sé que yo no me voy a casar. Prefiero llevar sacos al molino. [Acto primero] (I know I'm not going to get married. I prefer to carry sacks to the mill).

Amelia

  • Character: She is the least talkative of the five daughters, timid, and afraid of her mother.
  • Attitude: She shares the negative attitude of the daughters (except Adela) toward their fate.
  • Social Views: She avoids speaking ill of the neighbors but feels superior to them.
  • Pessimism: Amelia echoes the pessimistic attitudes of Magdalena and Martirio.
  • Victim: She sees herself as a victim of "esta crítica que no nos deja vivir" (this criticism that doesn't let us live).
  • Fate: She believes there is no worse fate than being born a woman.
  • Key quotation: Nacer mujer es el mayor castigo. [Acto segundo] (To be born a woman is the greatest punishment).

Martirio

  • Character: A tormented and wicked woman.
  • Appearance: She is physically deformed (hunchback), leading her to believe she will never marry.
  • Love: Secretly in love with Pepe, she seeks to destroy his relationship with Adela.
  • Conflict: She confronts and fights with Adela, confessing her love for Pepe out of jealousy.
  • Goal: She achieves her objective when she says, "Se acabó Pepe el Romano" (Pepe el Romano is finished) after Bernarda shoots at him with her shotgun.
  • Embittered: Martirio is an embittered character who is also in love with Pepe el Romano.
  • Rejection: Despite her physical deformity, she had a suitor, Enrique Humanes, but Bernarda rejected him because his father was a farm laborer.
  • Fatalism: She shares her older sisters' fatalism about their life: 'Yo hago las cosas sin fe, como un reloj' (I do things without faith, like a clock).
  • Passion: Her passion for Pepe is so overwhelming that she risks her mother's wrath by stealing his portrait from Angustias' room.
  • Importance: Martirio's importance in the plot increases as the tension rises.
  • Confrontation: She confronts Adela head-on to stop her from becoming Pepe's lover, even though she knows that her own passion for him cannot be reciprocated.
  • Evil Intention: Martirio recognizes her evil intention but cannot control her jealousy. Her lie brings about Adela's tragic end.
  • Key quotation: Tengo el corazón lleno de una fuerza tan mala, que sin quererlo yo, a mí misma me ahoga. [Acto tercero] (My heart is full of such an evil force that, without wanting to, it drowns me.)

Adela

  • Defiance: From her first appearance, offering her colorful fan at the funeral, Adela stands out for her defiance of convention, especially 'decencia' (decency) that governs social behaviour.
  • Rejection: She rejects her mother's edict to remain in the house and to mourn for 8 years: 'No, no me acostumbraré! Yo no quiero estar encerrada' (No, I will not get used to it! I don't want to be locked up), rejecting her warnings that her behaviour with Pepe is foolhardy.
  • Values: Adela stands apart from her sisters for her absolute refusal to compromise her values.
  • Tragedy: As the play goes on, this attitude and her headstrong nature lead her inescapably towards a tragic end.
  • Awareness: Aware that the eyes of her sisters are constantly on her, she tries in vain to shake them off.
  • Passion: She describes her passion for Pepe as being 'arrastrada por una maroma' (dragged by a rope); she is prepared to become his mistress no matter what society thinks.
  • Defiance: Before she dies she defiantly breaks her mother's rod of authority, a gesture that shows her will is stronger than Bernarda's.
    *Key quotation: Seré lo que él quiera que sea. Todo el pueblo contra mí, quemándome con sus dedos de lumbre, perseguida por los que dicen que son decentes… [Acto tercero] (I will be whatever he wants me to be. The whole village against me, burning me with their fiery fingers, persecuted by those who say they are decent…)

Angustias

  • Age and Status: Angustias is 39 years old and the eldest daughter of Bernarda. She has inherited her father's fortune (Bernarda's first husband), providing her with a large dowry for marriage.
  • Character: She is described as having a dry personality and being sickly. Her sisters consider her skinny and unattractive.
  • Pride: She is proud of her wealth and says she will soon "salir de este infierno" (get out of this hell).
  • Naivety: She is portrayed as naive, refusing to believe that Pepe is deceiving her.
  • Health: Angustias is such a sickly character that La Poncia suggests that she will die when bearing her first child.
  • Criticism: The other daughters are critical of her. Magdalena scornfully characterises her as the least worthy of all the daughters; at the age of 20 she already looked like 'un palo vestido' (a dressed stick).
  • Defense: She haughtily defends her right, given to her by her inheritance, to marry Pepe and to free herself from internment in the house.
  • Dependence: When the portrait of her fiancé goes missing, she shows that she is dependent on her mother to defend her from her jealous sisters.
  • Naiveté: She is naïve in thinking that Pepe is exclusively interested in marrying her, and refuses to believe that he did not leave the street outside the house until 4 a.m. It only dawns on her gradually that something might be amiss.

La Poncia

  • Role: Bernarda's servant and informer.
  • Importance: Her spying is indispensable to Bernarda's authority.
  • Function: She acts as a bridge between Bernarda and her daughters, reporting any behavior that might endanger Bernarda's reputation.
  • Deception: She is two-faced, acting faithful in Bernarda's presence but declaring her hatred behind her back.
  • Influence: Her stories titillate the daughters.
  • Realization: She realizes they live an unnatural life as 'mujeres sin hombre, nada más' (women without men, nothing more).
  • Motivation: It is in La Poncia's interest to maintain the status quo.
  • Prevention: She tries to prevent tragedy by warning Bernarda and Adela of the consequences of their actions.
  • Warnings: She warns Bernarda 'ni tú ni nadie puede vigilar por el interior de los pechos' (neither you nor anyone can watch over the inside of breasts), and Adela that she will 'dar voces' (shout) if Adela persists.
  • Resignation: When they reject her advice, she realizes she can do no more.
  • Prediction: Events unfold irreversibly, culminating in the 'cosa tan grande' (something so big) that she has predicted.
    *Key quotation: Pero yo soy buena perra: ladro cuando me lo dice… [Acto primero] (But I am a good bitch: I bark when she tells me to…)

Bernarda

  • Control: Bernarda Alba's character is revealed at the beginning of the play through a conversation between La Poncia and the Criada.
  • Description: According to La Poncia, Bernarda is a strong woman who oppresses her daughters with an iron fist; moreover, she is cold and acts without pity. She doesn't hesitate to hit them if she thinks they have threatened her authority.
  • Values: A negative value reigns in the house: it is necessary to avoid the "qué dirán" (what people will say), maintaining decency at all times. She employs La Poncia to observe everything that happens inside and outside the house. She wants to protect the purity of her daughters—their virginity—at all costs. For her, a daughter who disobeys her mother becomes an enemy. She is only interested in the exterior of people: she ignores what happens inside them, and that is why she cannot prevent the tragedy. The staff she carries symbolizes her power.
  • Before Bernarda appears on stage she is characterised by her servant, La Poncia, as 'tirana de todos los que la rodean' (tyrant of all those around her).
  • Cleanliness: Moreover, she is obsessed with cleanliness. Bernarda's spotless household is linked by the servant with her reputation in the community: she has to be the most decente, to be morally superior to everyone else.
  • Authority: Bernarda's arrival on stage bearing her rod of authority reinforces this characterisation: with her first word, '¡Silencio!', she establishes her dominance over the assembled women; she then reprimands the servant for her lack of cleanliness and sends her out of the room because this is not the place for a person of her class.
  • Language: Her language is the negative one of an absolute ruler: she gives orders and censures behaviour; she will brook no disobedience.
  • Privacy: Bernarda pries into the lives of her neighbours, aided by La Poncia; the more she knows about them, the more power she has over them. She is desperate to avoid gossip about her daughters' behaviour, imprisoning them in the house and ensuring that she is aware of their every move.
  • Weakness: Bernarda's great weakness is that she does not want to know what goes on inside her daughters' hearts; she believes absolutely in the infallibility of her 'system', certain that her vigilance and the discipline she imposes on her daughters will never fail her. She is blind to the tragedy that is unfolding in her house, ignoring La Poncia's warnings. She is capable of only one response to Adela's suicide: no one must breathe a word about Pepe; her daughter died a virgin.
    *Key quotation: Hasta que salga de esta casa con los pies por delante mandaré en lo mío y en lo vuestro. [Acto primero] (Until I leave this house feet first, I will rule over my own and yours.)

Character names and their meanings

  • Bernarda: derived from a German word meaning 'strong like a bear'.
  • Alba: meaning 'dawn' and referring to whiteness, can be associated with purity or chastity.
  • Adela: implies nobility in German. Adela is a character of great vitality who will not compromise her principles in the face of the tyranny of her mother.
  • Angustias: comes from 'angustia' meaning 'anguish'; this character is not happy with her lot.
  • Martirio: implies 'a person who suffers'. She is a twisted character, also full of spite and venom.
  • Prudencia: name suggests a woman who is wisely resigned to her lot in life.