What happens in Act One of The House of Bernarda Alba?
Act One begins right after the funeral of Bernarda Alba's second husband. The house is completely white: whitewashed walls, white mourning dresses, and shuttered windows. Bernarda orders her five daughters—Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio, and Adela—to observe eight years of strict mourning, not allowing them to step outside the house. The servant La Poncia and the maid exchange sharp comments about the family's double standards while Bernarda puts on a show of grief for the village women who have come after the burial. An old beggar woman is sent away, and Bernarda's senile mother, María Josefa, is locked back in her room after talking about wanting to escape and marry. The act ends with the daughters standing still in their white dresses as Bernarda strikes her cane on the floor and declares the household's main rule: silence.
Analysis
Lorca opens with a theatrical masterstroke: the funeral crowd fills the stage with noise, then empties it, leaving behind a silence that becomes the play's true antagonist. The whiteness of the set represents not purity but erasure—Bernarda's domestic order stripped of desire, color, and individuality. The cane she strikes throughout the act serves as both a metronome and a weapon, its rhythm enforcing the tempo of repression.
Lorca structures the act around a series of containments: the beggar is expelled, María Josefa is locked away, and the daughters are confined to the interior. Each expulsion highlights the play's central violence, which is spatial before it is physical. The house itself takes on a character of its own—its walls, its heat, and its locked doors reflect what the women cannot express aloud.
La Poncia acts as a chorus figure with a grudge, her gossip weaving exposition into something more corrosive: she knows the family's secrets and keeps them as a source of power. Her relationship with Bernarda is one of mutual dependence and contempt, a class negotiation played out entirely in subtext.
The tonal register shifts notably when María Josefa appears. Her madness serves as Lorca's ironic truth-telling device; she names freedom and desire openly simply because she is seen as someone whose words don’t carry weight. The act concludes not with dialogue but with percussion—Bernarda's cane—confirming that authority here is dictated by rhythm, not reason.
Key quotes from Act One
“Silence! I said silence!”
Bernarda's repeated command to her daughters and servants, establishing the totalitarian domestic register that governs every subsequent scene.
“With a stick I'll make you keep quiet. With a stick and eight years of mourning—none of you will breathe!”
Bernarda announces the terms of mourning to her daughters immediately after the funeral guests depart, fusing grief with punishment.
“I want to get away from here! Bernarda! To get married by the shore of the sea, by the shore of the sea!”
María Josefa's cry as she is dragged back to her locked room, her 'madness' voicing the longing for escape and love that the daughters must suppress in silence.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Act One
- mourning
- A period of grief and formal sorrow observed after someone's death, often marked by wearing black clothing and withdrawing from normal social life.
- whitewashed
- Painted over with a cheap white lime-based coating, giving walls a stark, bright appearance; here it signals rigid purity and suffocating conformity.
- shuttered
- Having the window covers closed and fastened, blocking out light and air and cutting off those inside from the outside world.
- matriarch
- A woman who rules her family with absolute authority, making all decisions and demanding total obedience from everyone beneath her.
- enforced
- Imposed by someone in power and not chosen freely; here it describes silence and mourning that are compelled rather than voluntary.
- courting
- Pursuing a romantic relationship with someone, especially with the formal intention of marriage.
- inheritance
- Money, property, or other assets passed down to someone after a relative's death.
- defiant
- Boldly refusing to obey rules or authority, openly resisting control rather than submitting.
- mentally unstable
- Having a mind that does not function in a predictable or controlled way, prone to erratic or confused behavior that others cannot manage.
- truth-teller
- A character who speaks uncomfortable or suppressed truths that others in the play refuse to acknowledge or try to hide.
- shore
- The land along the edge of the sea; here it represents freedom, escape, and a life beyond the locked house.
- housekeeper
- A servant employed to manage the domestic work of a household, occupying a position between the family and the other servants.