The Force of blood

Plot Overview

The Force of blood

The Calling Of Blood

Woman to Woman

• After having done his dirty deed Rodolfo wants to get rid of Leocadia ASAP. But being that she was stripped of the flower of her virginity she asks him to take away her life just like he took her honor: "If thy soul is capable of pity, grant me one prayer: having deprived me of honour, now deprive me of life. Let me not survive my disgrace!" (2).
• When her plea for death doesn't work out she asks for release without consequence for Rodolfo: "I will forgive the outrage you have done me, on the sole profound as this darkness in which you have perpetrated... My complaints shall be addressed only to heaven" (2).
• She begs for him to let her go and not follow her since she would not want anyone to associate her family with such burden. What her family lacks in wealth they have in nobility.
• She tries to reason with him but he has no words for her, he only tries to rape her one more time to which she opposes to with all of her strength.

• Little Luis was hurt so badly that he was in need of a surgeon. His grandfather and "cousin" found out about the accident and hurried to the home of the noble man where Luis was being treated; the grandfather thanks the man for the services provided to his nephew.
• The boy was to stay in this home until he recovered, it took 4 days for him to recuperate consciousness and one full month before he could get out of bed.
• After things simmered down Leocadia realizes that the room where Luis is being treated is actually the same room where she was once raped. Some of the things have changed but the bed where she was robbed of her virginity is the same one in which Luis now lies. The window, the garden, and the amount of steps she walked to leave the house served as confirmation for this assumption.

By: Miguel Cervantes

• Leocadia tells her mother about her discovery of her rapist's whereabouts, which the mother then shares with her husband. They choose to keep everything a secret until Luis is out danger.
• Constantly throughout the novel we hear Estefania, Rodolfo's mother, tell Leocadia how similar Luis and Rodolfo are looks wise. Leocadia decides it is time to tell the truth and she tells her story without interruptions to Doña Estefania. Then out sorrow and hurt Leocadia faints. The crucifix served as the evidence to Leocadia's story.
• Estefania tells her husband the truth: "The fainting girl before you is your daughter, and that boy is your grandson. Truth which I have learned from her lips is confirmed by his face; in which we have both beheld that of our son" (7).
• Leocadia and Luis are invited to live in Estefania's house while Rodolfo is being summoned back home from Naples with news of having a wife waiting for him back at home.

The results of an encounter with between a beautiful maiden, a noble man keeping the wrong company, and the shed of blood of a child brings a positive resolution to a kidnapping nightmare!

• At one point Rodolfo leaves Leocadia in the room and goes in search of his men to decide what to do with the lady.
• Leocadia still blindfolded walks around the room and notices that it must belong to a wealthy man: "She saw that the bed was gilded, and so rich, that it seemed that of a prince rather than of a private gentleman" (3).
• Judiciously steals the silver crucifix as a token to identify her aggressor.
• Rodolfo lies to his men and say that he was moved by her suffering and he let her free.
• Rodolfo returned to the house and grabbed the still blindfolded lady; he took her to the Plaza Del Ayuntamiento and speaking in a Spanish/Portuguese accent he told her she is free to go home without fear.
• Once home she is embraced by her loving family and she tells her story. She gives every detail she remembers of the room. the window, the garden, and even the crucifix.
• She tells her father about her plan to catch her aggressor through the crucifix. Her father tells her that this plan can easily backfire since the aggressor can send a third party to collect his jewel and then they would be arresting the wrong man.

• An old hidalgo of Toledo is out for a walk with his wife, his 16yrs old daughter, his little boy, and one of his female servants.
• A young Cavalier [22yrs] by the name of Rodolfo is going down a hill while the family is going up and he notices the beautiful Leocadia. He and his men make flirtatious remarks which anger Leocadia's father.
• The men ["Parasites"] who come with Rodolfo encourage Rodolfo in his plan to steal Leocadia away; so he does.
• Leocadia's parents are left hopeless and helpless because they have no means to send men to search for the young lady. They are too poor to afford that kind of service.
• Rodolfo takes the lady to his room in his father's house where he steals away her honor; out of all of the stress Leocadia passes out.

Questions:

Themes

• Would you consider this novel one of Cervantes's exemplary novels? Why or why not?
• Do you think the name fits the story?
• Do you think its okay to forgive rape in exchange for marriage?
• Where could have Leocaida's family obtained the nobility she claims for them to have? don't you have to have money to be noble?

Repulsive Bride

No more lies - Leocadia the bride!

Nobility VS Wealth

• Seeing that her son had also fainted Estefania chooses to set her scheme aside and tell Rodolfo the truth; that Leocadia is his bride and that the portrait was just pretense. Rodolfo held Leocadia in his arms and kissed her passionately; almost hoping for his kiss to return her soul to her body.
• After everything was clarified Estefania called Leocadia's father and the priest from a room near by and ordered the priest to marry the now lovers.
• "I found myself, señor, in your arms without honour; but for that I had full compensation, since on my recovery from this day's swoon I found myself in the same arms, but honoured... You are mine, the lady of my soul, and shall be so as long as God grants me life" (11).
• "The whole house was buried in silence; but not so shall be the truth of this story, which will be kept alive in the memory of men by the many children and descendants of that illustrious house in Toledo" (11).

• Rodolfo head back home from Naples and is back in Toledo within 14 days. He is more than excited to meet his new wife.
• Estefania questions Rodolfo's partners about that one night many years ago. They confirm her assumptions. Here is where Estefania puts into effect her plan to trick Rodolfo.
• His mother gives him a portrait of an ugly woman and he refuses to marry her because "Virtue, good birth, prudence, and the gifts of fortune, are all very good things, and may well gladden the heart of whoever may have the lot to obtain this lady for wife; but that her ugliness can ever gladden the eyes of her spouse, appears to me an impossibility... some look for noble blood in a wife, some for understanding, others for money, and others again for beauty, and of the latter call I am one" (9).
• Leocadia walks into the dinner room and Rodolfo is in awe by her beauty: "could I find half that beauty in the wife my mother has chosen for me, I should think myself the happiest man in the world" (10).
• Charged with emotions Leocadia started to feel weak again and one more time she collapsed into Doña Estefania's arms.
• Leocadia was unconscious, some of the servants even considered her dead. Rodolfo out of stress and worry also fainted, landing on Leocadia's bosom.

• Leocadia's Family: "What they lack in wealth they make up in nobility."
• Rodolfo's behavior in comparison to that on a gentleman.
• Carelessness about the crucifix's disappearance.
• The baby's behavior: he acted like royalty.
• Disheartened parents when they realized they couldn't send people out on a search for Leocadia.

Darkness

• Men in cloaks
• Blindfolding Leocadia
• Darkness of the room.

• Leocadia keeps her pregnancy as a secret and her mother assumes the role of the midwife. She give birth to a beautiful baby boy who is taken to a remote village to live with his grandfather until he is 4yrs old; he is introduced to society as the grandfather's nephew [Leocadia's cousin).
• The baby boy turn out to be very smart and well mannered: "For it was the intention of his grandparents to make him learned and virtuous, since they could not make him rich, learning and virtue being such wealth as thieves cannot steal, or fortune destroy" (6).

• "An ounce of public dishonour outweighs a quintal of secret infamy... you can live in honor before the public eye, let it not distress you so much to be dishonored in your ownself in secret" (5).
• Leocadia's father proposes that she instead pray to the crucifix since it had witnessed the dishonorable act. From that point and on Leocadia begins her life as a recluse.
• Rodolfo notices the disappearance of the crucifix but pays no mind to it, instead he focuses on leaving to Italy.
• "What she had once done voluntarily at first, she found herself, in a few months, constrained to do so by necessity; for she discovered that she was pregnant" (5)

Secrecy

• One day the grandfather sent Luis to deliver a message. The young boy was distracted by a group of men on horses and decided to cross the street to get a close look. He was ran over and hurt gravely by one of the men on horses.

• The rape
• The pregnancy and Birth
• Rodolfo not mentioning anything to anyone about his dirty deed.
• Estefania's trick with the ugly bride

What Happened?