CHARACTERIZATION BENAVENTE AND LORCA

The dramatists, Jacinto Benavente and Federico García Lorca, created in their plays some of the most electrifying and representative female characters of the modem Spanish scene.It is already well known that Lorca's women supply the main interest ofhis dramas and are symbolic of his deepest meanings. Woman for Lorca represents the true combination of physical and spiritual forces found in society. He tries constantly to reach lhe essence of humanity, and, to this end, female characters are his most important vehicles. Woman is the essence par excellence, whose influence illuminates the dramatic elements, thus providing a basis for a truly poetic play. Human, feminine, profound, universal, she is the heroine whose personality permeates the entire work.

Even though the plays of these two masters are very different not only in concept but also in technique and in the use of characters as artistic elements within the play itself, both dramatists showed many similarities in their interpretation of the role of woman. Problems arise when a comparison is made between both writers. This article will attempt to investigate the female characters from the point of view of their artistic function within the play.
At the very beginning the variety of Benavente's characters is an obstacle to any Comparison with Lorca's characters. It would be almost an impossible task to reduce Benavente's themes and characters to a pattem, but his style ís fairly constant.
There is a great difference between Raimunda (La Ma/querida) and Silvia (Los Intereses Creados). The latter is a character without real impact; she has an important role but it is not fully developed. As a result she gives a rather weak impressiono On the other hand, Raimunda and even Acacia in the first play are the central strength of the play, not o~y as elements in the plot and action but also as representative women of society. In this rural tragedy Benavente used an introspective technique in sketching the two women, their expressions, their strong passions and sentiments as well as their mutual frustrations. lie even deals with their repressed subconscious desires. The play is characterized by strong dramatic tension and play of character, a technique that Gonzalo Torrente Ballester has called "escamoteo," "Ia sustitución sistemática de Ia acción por Ia narración o Por Ia alusión, en el escamoteo de los momentos dramáticos:' 1

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In Seiiora Ama, Dominica represents another feminine type. The symbolism or 1he title suggests that she is :'masterful," "just," "domineering." She is a heroic figure \\lho controls not on1y the action of the play but also most of the other female characters. She is dose to the definition of a "complete woman," thus illustrating the hidden significance of her name, Ama. This is another tragedy rooted deep in humanity -the frustration of a woman incapable of fultilling her greatest desire, mother-hood.
On the other hand, in Los Inereses Creados, Sirean, Colombina, and Silvia, eVen though they are important characters, are on1y superficially treated.
Benavente enjoys playing with his publico He leads them to believe something, gives them impressions of the characters -impressions which he diliberately destroys later on, A good example is found in Seiiora Ama (11, 9)2 when Maria Juana turns out to be very different -from the character she was first thought to represento Benavente purposely rnisguides his audience by letting them see Maria Juana through Dominica's eyes. Another example of the same technique occurs in La Ma/querida when the audience is convinced of Esteban's wickedness by Raimunda: she dominates the stage, and what she feels and believes automatically influences those who watch her. It is not until Acacia takes over that another perspective is opened, thus throwing a new light on the action. The audience learns of other factors that motivate Esteban and Acacia (III, 4, 7V In Lorca's plays, the theme, tone, and characters change little during the action, and his female characters are like variations on one and the same theme -the theme of heredity and sexual frustration. This theme appears in Benavente but not with the consistency found in Lorca's poetical dramas. A character like Benavente's Dominica dorninates and changes the other characters and even influences the audience, but the play ends on a positive and optimistic note. In Yerma, Dona Rosita /a Soltera, La casade Bernarda A/ba, and Bodas de Sangre, however, Lorca plunges his audience into a sea of passion and frustration which intensely involves the spectator.
The role of the woman in Benavente's theater is versatile, and in certain plays, like Seiiora Ama and La Ma/querida, his feminine characters are very similar to Lorca's. They can be analyzed from two related points of view: first, they express a different system from those of Lorca, and second, when the characters have similar values, they appear in totally different contexts. For example, Raimunda and Acacia in La Ma/querida and Dorninica in Seiiora Ama are comparable to a certain extent with Lorca's Yerma of Yerma, the mother in Bodas de Sangre, and Bernarda in La casa de Bernarda Albo. Immediately the audience notices in the life of these women the mysterious forces of blood relationship -Ia fuerza de Ia sangre.
Raimunda's second marriage (with Esteban) has remained sterile, just like Yertlla's and she suffers from the uncontrollable obsession which distinguished the mother in Bodas de Sangre and Bernarda in La casa de Bernarda A/ba. This obsession produces the catastrophe when it imposes, or attempts, to impose: social law (matrimony) on wild emotion. From the beginning Acacia (La Ma/querida) hints strongly about her sentirnen ts for Esteban and shows clearly a lack of enthusiasm for Faustino: Acacia -Mira estos pendientes, me los ha regalado ... Bueno, Esteban ... , ahora no esta mi madre: mi madre quiere que le llame padre síempre." Later on, the death of Faustino proves that passion cannot be tarned by convention. Since she was from the begining the obstacle to fulfillment and therefore the cause of the tragic tension, by murdering Raimunda Esteban relieves his thwarted passion.
Although in many ways a realist, Benavente, by the use of tragic irony, introduces a strong poetic element into his pIays. La Malquerida, for example, begins with a gay scene at a party, progresses steadily through the development of complicated problems, and ends in tragedy. As Raimunda herself says: Nunca va y vienê, de ande quiers que sea, que no se acuerde de traerle also ... No se acuerds tanto de mí, y nunca me he sentido por eso; que ai fin es mi hija, y el que Ia quiera de ese modo me ha hecho quererle más. s Symbolism is abundant throughout La Malquerida; Isabel remembers Faustino beeause she onee saw him knoeked down by a bull; when Aeacia is burning the Iast letter ofNorberto, she hears the shot that kills Faustino, and so forth.
The restaints imposed by religion are mueh weaker in Lorea than in Benavente: "Deva tú el rosario," says Raimunda when she hears of Faustino's assassination, "yo no puedo ni rezar," "esa madre, esa madre." The impression is that some emotions are deeper than those imposed by religion.
Although often set against a different seale of values, sexual frustration also appears in both. Dominca resembles Yerma; her reaction toward children she sees is the sarne that Yerma feels toward Marís's child. Both women suffer from their sterility. Seiiora Ama might be classified as a comedy since it has a positive ending. The frustration disappears when Dorninica is found to be pregnant, even though Benavente maintains the suspense of her supposed sterility unitl the Iast moment. The play contains no foreboding eIements, and the spectator may therefore hope for a happy ending.
Dominica is a complete woman; she has the same feeIings as Yerma and dona Rosita and is also a central character. But she turns into a positive figure: thus she gives the play an almost optimistic tone, while in Lorca's tragedies the audience never escaped from the fatalities of passion. .
La Ma/querida Lies somewhere between these extremes. Whereas it ends in lJIeVitabletragedy when Esteban murders Raimunda, it implies that Acacia and Estebañ enjoy a moment of happiness, even though a brief one. Benavente is trying to satísfy bis public by winding up the plot: he leaves his public no loose ends and provides ã lution to the pIay, just as he did in Seiiora Ama. Lorca in his poetieal intensity leaves bis audience unsatisfied: after the curtain has fallen they torment themselves for days g to penetrate the world of passion, a world alien to most men who will never be le to fully understand it. In Bodas de Sangre, this poetical intensity is an increasing progressionthat finalIy explodes at the end. When "Ia Novia" escapes with Leonardo, thẽ other eondemns her son in order to purgue the honor of the farnily and satisfy the inreditary hate. From this moment on (Act I1I), the pIay's symbolism becomes more te~e. The figures of the moon, the wood choppers, the beggar, the young girl arẽ~c al devices that suggest death. In this pIay as well as in Seiiora Ama there is a kind of "l'peasement, sinee the mother does not want to revenge herself on the Novia. Instead of accentuating the dramatic tension of the play, the author evokes a realm of passion which must forever remain enigmatic. The drama ends with an elegy to the essence of the play itself: the knives, symbol of creation and destruction.
The feminine figures in Lorca's Bodas de Sangre, Dona Rosita Ia Soltera, Yerma, and La casa de Bernarde Alba are of great poetical intensity. They exist in a real world, but not so real and appealing to the human senses, or rather to the exterior, as are Benavente's. Lorca's figures are directed more to the interior world which is created by the poetical language used by the artist. Thus the established rhythm by a given character as the dialogues of two of them is very appropriate to that mysterious vitality that emanates from within. Lorca creates a new world, a world of imagination and intemporality. He was the Salvador Dalí of scenography.
On the other hand, in Benavente's language it is noticeable that his characters have a particular accent or some noticeable characteristic that identifies them. They exist in the temporal world; they represent real people that already have an established existenee and are identifiable because of common peculiarities. That is why, in spite of the evident depth of Raimunda, the audience never completely understands her nature. She hinders this by using a facade. That poetic world of Lorca, that world which is impossible to define and enclose in conventional barriers, is not sensed in Benavente. The emotions of Lorca are so abundant that the audience is engulfed in a sea of extreme sentiments that are of such an impact that they became involved in a series of emotions that are identifiable by both sexes. By creating a type of heterosexuality in his artistic approaeh, Lorca is able to create emotions felt by both men and women, thus creating in theory, ai least, this duality as far as the audience response goes, and making possible this paradoxical blend of sexes at the emotional and poeticallevels.
The feminine character represented by both dramatists gives them the opportunity of representing on the stage the vital force that conducts our daily actions and reactions, that mysterious elan that has always puzzled mankind and will continue to do so for centuries to come. These characters are well-defined figures as far as representing the weaker sex, but the approach and vision of the characters are not the same. Despite the fact that they might be sympathetic with that world, neither Benavente nor his public existed in a truly dramatic world. His characters are self-images representing the idea of mirror-irnage; they are the audience identifying themselves and others with the stag e characters. Lorca's characters, as well as his public, are plunged into the mirror and gO beyond the realm of irnagination to find themselves in an incomprehensible world of depth and mystery, a world that has never been unveiled to them before by any o~er Spanish dramatist, a world of essence, of symbols, and of agonizing desperation-Desplte the fact that Lorca tried to obtain his plays from real occurrences and portray them as truly photographical documents he seems to have forgotten his primary. He creates a r~ce . H· ative of brave and unconquerable women who are to acertam extent real people. IS cre imagination mixes colors and folklore to produce a world of lorquianismos. Rubio -Eso, usted 10 sabrá, Pero cuando se confiaba usted de mí, cuando me decía usted un día y otro: "Si esta mujer es pa otro hombre no miraré naa." Y cuando me decÍa usted: "Va a casarse, y esta vez no pueo espantar aI que se Ia lleva, se casa, se Ia llevan de aquí, y ca vez que 10 pienso ... "