In Lorca’sconflict themed play;Blood Wedding , symbolism is a dominating literature technique that forebodes the significant events that occur. The protagonist of the play, Leonardo, is seen to have a rebellious attitude towards society. The horse is perceived to be a symbol of occurrences that foreshadows his destiny, which is his death caused by his desire to attain individuality in the repressive society he lives in. This is especially prominent in the morbid lullaby sang by his mother and wife to his son, as the dark imagery of the horse and the river epitomizes Leonardo’s fate. This essay will explore the symbolic representation of the horse and the lullaby, to bring out the conflict between the protagonist and the society.
Lorca employs imagery of the horse to foreshadow the inevitable gruesome death of the protagonist.
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The worn-out horse is described as “stretched out, with eyeballs bulging, heaving as if he’d just come back from the end of the world” . The image of the tired horse is created using descriptive diction. The “stretched out” horse shows that it has been over-worked to an extent that it seems that its life has been drained out of it. Therefore, Lorca brings out Leonardo’s struggle to fight against society’s rigid commands, which denounce his individuality. The “eyeballs bulging” further emphasizes on Leonardo’s struggle to attain individualism as it depicts an image of a zombie to the audience, illustrating Leonardo’s stoicism as a result of the inflexible society. The “heaving” horse that travelled to the “end of the world” creates the image of the extent to which Leonardo has gone in order for him to attain his uniqueness. The “end of the world” could also be argued to be Bride’s house, which is an isolated place, further stressing on how much love Leonardo has for Bride, that he would go and see her, even if he is extremely