La Casa De Bernarda Alba

La Poncia is Bernarda’s housekeeper and closest confidant. She is the same age as Bernarda and has spent 30 years in her service. Her sons work in Bernarda’s fields. She is garrulous, gossip-loving, and full of scandalous stories that she loves to tell anyone who will listen. Despite this lack of tact, she is clever to the ways of the world and easily sees through to the heart of Bernarda’s intentions. She tries desperately to counsel her where her daughter’s prospects are concerned, issuing warning after warning about Pepe, as she immediately predicts the chaos that he will ignite among the women.

Despite La Poncia’s jovial intimacy with the Benavides family, she never loses sight of the class differences that irrevocably divide them. She is the first to disparage Bernarda behind her back, condemning her for her despotism and meanness of spirit, proclaiming in Act I:

Thirty years washing her sheets. Thirty years eating her leftovers. […] Whole days peeking through a crack in the shutters to spy on the neighbors and carry her the tale. Life without secrets one from the other. But in spite of that—curse her! May the “pain of the piercing nail” strike her in the eyes (158).

Despite these complaints, La Poncia continues to do her best to counsel Bernarda, and when she refuses to listen, to counsel her daughters.

At 39 years old, Angustias is the eldest of Bernarda’s daughters and the only one born from Bernarda’s first marriage. She is described disparagingly by Bernarda as “white and mealy-mouthed, casting sheep’s eyes at every little barber’s compliment” (167), and by Magdalena as “the least attractive one of us,” who “talks through her nose” (172). When the inheritance is divided following Benavides’s death, Angustias inherits a modest fortune (left to her by her father and kept intact by Benavides until his death). The dowry from this inheritance makes her the only daughter likely to receive an offer of marriage. Sure enough, after the funeral, Pepe el Romano begins visiting her at her window each night, intent on marrying her even though he has eyes only for Adela.

At 30 years old, Magdalena is the first-born daughter from Bernarda’s second marriage. She is the only daughter who appears upset over Benavides’s death. Following the funeral, however, she adopts an air of blithe resignation, stating, “I know I’m not going to marry. I’d rather carry sacks to the mill. Anything except sit here day after day in this dark room” (165). She is particularly fond of Adela and says of her: “Poor little thing! She’s the youngest one of us and still has her illusions. I’d give something to see her happy” (171).

At age 27, Amelia is Bernarda’s middle child and the tender-hearted peacekeeper of the family. She is particularly close to Martirio and tries to console her in moments of moody discontentment or bouts of illness.

At age 24, Martirio is the second-youngest daughter. She was born sickly and weak, and of all the others, she is the most resigned to a future of unhappiness. Act I reveals that she once received interest from a young man named Enrique Humanes, who sent word to her through a servant girl that he would come for her in the night and take her away against the wishes of her mother. She waited for him all night, but he never came. This disappointment has clearly made her bitter, and when the handsome Pepe el Romano captures the attentions of Angustias and Adela, she embarks on a mission to sabotage both romances. In Act II, La Poncia chides Bernarda for sabotaging Martirio and Enrique Humanes’s romance, thus revealing that a letter telling Enrique not to come on the night of his arranged rendezvous with Martirio was the cause of his failure to show. Bernarda swears that her “blood won’t mingle with the Humanes’ while [she lives]” (191).

At 20 years old, Adela is the youngest, most beautiful, and most hot-headed of the sisters. After her father’s funeral, she defies her mother’s orders of mourning and goes out into the yard wearing a green dress made originally for her birthday, hoping to catch the attention of the men from the funeral party. Although Pepe el Romano originally starts coming to the house in order to court her Angustias—made newly rich by the divided inheritance—he ends up being inexorably drawn to Adela as the true object of his desires. She encourages his attraction by appearing “almost naked at [her] window, and with the light and the window open” (183), and the two embark on an illicit love affair culminating in a passionate liaison in the corral at the play’s climax. Bernarda chases Pepe from the house at gunpoint once Martirio reveals their actions, but he manages to flee into the night unscathed. Martirio leads Adela to believe him killed, driving her to run offstage in despair, lock herself in her room, and hang herself.

Bernarda’s 80-year-old mother suffers from unspecified dementia and is prone to wandering. Bernarda keeps her locked up any time outsiders are near for fear she will embarrass the family. The family often forgets about her or writes her off entirely. When she does manage to escape from her room, she talks fiercely about wanting to find and marry a “beautiful manly man from the shore of the sea.” She is a prisoner of the house just like the other women.