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Fuenteovejuna
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Act III, Scenes 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Act III, Scene 1 Summary
The men of Fuenteovejuna are having a secret meeting in the town hall to determine the best course of action now that the town is, as Esteban claims, a “rotting corpse” (84). Juan Rojo suggests they go to Ferdinand and Isabella for help, while Leonelo believes they should simply evacuate the town. Alonso rejects both of these courses of action, and instead argues that they should take up arms against the Commander themselves. Barrildo is shocked, but Esteban argues that “In the eyes of God only the King is sovereign. / We owe no loyalty to men who behave like / Wild animals” (85).
Laurencia arrives and demands to be let in. She chastises those at the meeting, her father especially, for failing to protect her when she was abducted on her wedding day. She points out her own injuries, then calls the men of the town cowards, eunuchs, and traitors for allowing the Commander to terrorize their wives and daughters, then claims the job has now fallen to the women of the town:
Why do those swords hang at your sides?
Why don’t I lend you my knitting
Needles to stick into your belts!
Then you can watch us do the job.
Women! We’ll wipe away the stain,
Drink the blood of the abusers:
Then we will stone you in the streets… (88)
She tells the men that the Commander is going to hang Frondoso without a trial, then come and kill the rest of the men off, after which the “brave Amazonian women / Will restore dignity to this town” (89).
Laurencia’s speech works: the men take up whatever arms they can find and leave to go after the Commander. She then calls the women of the town in and asks, “is it right / That only our men should enjoy / The glory of this night?” (90). She calls on Jacinta to lead the brigade of women and Pascuala to be the standard bearer, and they march off into the night.
Act III, Scene 2 Summary
The Commander is preparing to hang Frondoso at his residence when he and the others here the angry mob approaching. The Commander is shocked, first that they dare touch his gates, then that “his” people would rise up against him (92-3). He orders Frondoso untied and asks him to quell the crowd; he leaves but joins them in their quest for “Justice! For Fuente Ovejuna!” (94). The men of Fuenteovejuna burst in; the Commander tries to reason with them, but they descend upon him, shouting that their “true masters / Are King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella!” and “Death to the Commander!” (95).
Act III, Scene 3 Summary
Outside the Commander’s residence, the women call for his death while the fighting goes on inside. Laurencia grows impatient and rushes in herself, as she “can’t keep this sword sleeping in its scabbard” (97).
Flores runs outside, trying to get away from Mengo; Pascuala tells Mengo to give Flores to them, and he accedes. Shortly thereafter, Ortuño runs out, chased by Laurencia, who calls for the women “to go inside and dip your weapons / In the tyrant’s blood!” (98).
Act III, Scenes 1-3 Analysis
In this first section of the third act, we see a clear continuation of the feminist perspective of the play. The act begins with the men debating, but unwilling to commit to, a course of action, with most of the men preferring to throw themselves at the mercy of Ferdinand and Isabella or simply run away; even after Alonso argues for them to take action, they continue to debate.
Laurencia, on the other hand, representing the women of the town (as her father often represents the men), is livid and ready to fight. It is her speech that calls the men of the town to action, then her follow-up that calls the women to action, as well. (It’s notable that when they finally do arrive at the Commander’s residence, Frondoso is about to be hanged, suggesting that if they had waited any longer, he would have been dead by the time they arrived.) Beyond merely calling for action, though, the content of her speech promotes clear agency for the women, who were unable to be protected by the men of the town: to the men, she calls for a new age of Amazonian, female domination, and to the women she argues that rather than allow the men the satisfaction of revenge, they should be the ones to get it.
Fuenteovejuna is often considered to be a play of the people and was coopted as such by communist and workers movements. While that reading is debated, it comes from these scenes, when the townspeople, an oppressed, poor class, work together to overthrow their tyrannical, wealthy master. In fact, they take matters into their own hands after considering, and rejecting, an appeal to another set of masters, Ferdinand and Isabella; further, they also reject the call to run away, which would have relinquished what little they did have to the person who already had so much more. Their uprising argues that the people “owe no loyalty to men who behave like / Wild animals” (85),and while the full context of the quote (“In the eyes of God only the King is sovereign” [85]) still suggests monarchical piety, there is nevertheless the sense that the people, at least, should determine who gets to rule them.
The constant flipping of the Commander, when facing down the crowd, is rather interesting, as it echoes not only his previous whimsical flip-flopping, but also that of his chosen companions. He at first is in shock that the people would dare to touch his gates, suggesting they are unworthy to do so (92), but then acts bewildered that “his people” would rise up against him, feigning the part of benevolent, loving master (93). He then appeals to his own honor, asking that he be able to “resolve every grievance” (94), but when this fails, he attempts to order them to do so as their “lord and master” (95). On the one hand, this is what we might expect from someone facing death for his crimes, and his fickleness isn’t out of character; on the other hand, it reinforces the lack of virtue held by those in power and echoes the Act One banter between Frondoso and Laurencia, in which they comment on the hypocrisy of city people.
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