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=**HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA**= This page will be a working document to add notes for the text and will be a useful revision tool. http://www.caridadsvich.com/plays/Resources/BernardaAlba2005.jpg

Comments by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt (__Literature of the Western World__. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1988. 1986-88):

. . . a tough, compassionate study of the suffering of women under a repressive, male-oriented code of sexual roles and behavior. The cruelty implicit in the conservative sexual code becomes horrifyingly explicit in the episode the ends Act II. But Lorca also places his social theme within a more general context. His concern throughout his life with the tragic conflict between primitive passions and rigid conventions that frustrate their expression achieves its fullest statement in this play. . . . the tragedy of Bernarda Alba's daughters becomes a tragedy of human beings in general. The house, with its thick, whitewashed walls against which a stallion obsessively kicks (opening of Act III), is only one of a number of images of enclosure and imprisonment that dominate the play. Bernarda Alba and her daughters are imprisoned not only in their house but also in the past, in their culture, in their female bodies, and finally in the human condition, trapped between the soaring demands of the human spirit and the bonds of the earth.

**TASK ONE: THEME TRACKING (Please click here for instruction on how to format and structure each page)**

 * 1) Tyranny and oppression
 * 2) Rebellion
 * 3) Gossip and creating impressions
 * 4) Role of Women (Gender Expectations)
 * 5) Portrayal of Men (presence and absence)
 * 6) Conflict
 * 7) Hierarchy of Power
 * 8) Hypocrisy

**TASK TWO: IMAGERY**

 * 1) Religious Imagery
 * 2) Animal Imagery
 * 3) Weather imagery


 * TASK THREE: COMPARISON WITH //STREETCAR// AND //WHO'S AFRAID//**
 * comparison grid****