Australias current account deficit

Short Essay on the play 'The house of Benarda Alba'

Federico Garcia Lorca's last play, completed in 1936 just weeks before his brutal murder, depicts a reclusive household of eight women sequestered by Andalusian codes of honour.

This short play is set in rural Spain at the turn of this century. The characters, all women, exist in a cloistered household managed by a newly widowed mother of five daughters. Under the shadow of the church and the tyranny bred from a need to protect the reputation of the family, the matron (Bernarda Alba) represses her daughters by enforcing an eight year mourning period. The tensions build rapidly among the imprisoned women, with a demented grandmother playing a role resemblin...