41 pages • 1 hour read
Fuenteovejuna
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Symbols & Motifs
Honor
The question of honor and morality returns throughout the play. The Commander questions the honor of the Grand Master at the start of the play, as he feels he is being slighted by being made to wait; shortly thereafter, we get the opposing perspective, as Laurencia’s complaint about the Commander (and men more generally) is his lack of honor—or, perhaps more accurately, his taking of women’s honor. Laurencia and Frondoso likewise center matters of morality and honor in their jabs at city people, and Esteban breaks in response to the Commander over honor when the latter asks the former to give up his daughter’s. He expresses disbelief that people of the city could lack honor in the way that the Commander claims. Further, honor is what separates Frondoso and the Commander; whereas the latter only feigns honor, Frondoso lives it, even returning to Fuenteovejuna because he felt it would be wrong to remain in hiding while the people of the town were being tortured. Much of the play boils down to matters of and debates about honor, including the killing of the Commander—justified, literally, due to his lack of honor—and the centering of honor in the ultimate decision to pardon the town.
The Crossbow
The crossbow carried by the Commander and ultimately used to threaten him and save Laurencia can be seen as a symbol of the larger conflict of the play. The crossbow is initially being used by the Commander to hunt; it is a weapon that allows him an advantage over his prey, which he has no qualms taking because he sees his prey as inhuman. The act will be mirrored shortly after the scene when he uses Flores and Ortuño as his weapons, treating the women of Fuenteovejuna as his prey. Further, the crossbow can be viewed as a phallic symbol, and it is important what Frondoso chooses to do, and what he chooses not to do, with it. He picks it up as the Commander is attempting to rape Laurencia; Frondoso threatens him with it only in order to get him to release Laurencia, but then refuses to shoot the Commander himself; that is, he refuses to forcefully penetrate him using the arrow. By the end of the scene, the crossbow remains unfired and in Frondoso’s possession, acting as a symbol of purity, whereas it was a symbol of evil while in the Commander’s possession.
Love
Love is a motif that, like honor, recurs in order to serve as a grounding mechanism for the play. Early in Act One, when we first meet some of the townspeople—including Laurencia and Frondoso—they are debating the nature of love, and, importantly, whether it is self-serving, which Mengo argues, or if it exists outside the self, as other characters seem to believe.
The play is, of course, partially grounded in the love between Frondoso and Laurencia; however, it is not a marriage play, and we don’t end with a ‘happily ever after’ for the couple, but rather a pardon for the town as a whole, suggesting that their love is secondary to the strength of the community. It is love that separates Frondoso from the Commander, as they both feel passion toward Laurencia.In that regard, then, love is equated with honor, the other thing that separates the two of them. Lastly, and despite his individualist rhetoric at the start of the play, Mengo ultimately allows love to make him part of the collective: not his love for a woman, but his love for the people.
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