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In the analysis of her play, Ruined, Lynn Nottage, discusses the life for females in an African war-torn country. She goes further as to explaining the details of how many women of the region were often mutilated or forced to become concubines. However, Nottage decides to tell the spectacular story of a woman whose mutilation does not define her, however, she defines it. In other words, as a woman in a war- torn Congo, Sophie’s mutilation actually gives her agency.
To begin with, let’s discus the history and details of FGM. FGM also known as Female Genital Mutilation, is the partial or total removal of a female’s external genitalia. Although it is not as common as it was 2000 years ago, this is practiced globally and is known to take place
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in many African countries; at least 26 out of 43. This practice is believed to be supported by traditional beliefs values and attitudes. Some believe the practice was initiated to help control female sexual behavior. However, many believe FGM is valued as a passage into womanhood and or preserving a female until marriage. Similarly, there are 4 main categories of FGM: Excision, removal of clitoris, infibulation and unclassified, this includes the pricking or incision of the clitoris or labia. Consequently, this practice can be devastating and is psychologically harmful to its recipients. In addition, Sophie is introduced by her uncle Christian, a trafficker who brings her to Mama Nadi, who runs a brothel. Because of the war, and Sophie’s mutilation, he decides this is the best option. Mama, who is yet to reveal her own identity of mutilation, knows Sophie will be no use to her business. However, after Christian’s constant pleading, she decides otherwise. Meanwhile mama then discovers just how useful and smart Sophie is. This is later shown, when Sophie helps mama manage the bar’s finances, while also planning to take advantage of a given opportunity. For example, Mama: No, you’re not trying to run off with my money? “Take her in, give her food.” Your uncle begged me. What am I supposed to do? I trust you. Everyone say, she bad luck, but I think this is a smart girl, maybe Mama won’t have to do everything by herself. You read books, you speak good, like white man—but is this who you want to be? Sophie: I’m sorry, Mama.
Mama: No. No. I will put you out on your ass. I will let you walk naked down that road, is that what you want? What did you think you were going to do with my money?!
Act 1 Scene 6 (1764)
To clarify, mama has discovered that Sophie has been stealing her tips. Mama then questions her decision to take her in and warns her of the consequences of her disloyalty. However, after Sophie tells mama of her intentions. Mama then congratulates Sophie for being brave enough to steal from her. As a result, this later shows mama that she and Sophie are very much alike.
Furthermore, Sophie’s mutilation impacts her. At first, everyone viewed Sophie as this beautiful piece of garbage that no one wants. Her outer appearance stated beauty and significance while her circumcision stated otherwise. As I explained before, mama knows Sophie is of true value and destined for importance. For instance,
Mama: You do this for me. I don’t want the other women to know. So let’s do this quickly.
Mr. Harari: And the doctor’s name is on the paper. I’m to call when I get
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there Mama: Yes. And you give Sophie the money. The money for the stone. Understand. Promise me. It’s important. All of it. Mr. Harari: . . . Yes. Are you sure? Mama: Yes. Act 2 Scene 6 (1787) To explain, Mr. Harari warns mama that Osembenga knows her secret of playing both sides. Thus, he then warns her that he and his men are coming to get vengeance. Mama, who is sick of running, explains that she will not leave her business. Besides she is getting older. In fact, she suggests that he takes Sophie instead; so, she can start a new life. Along with mama acknowledging Sophie’s importance, she then gives Mr. Harari her “insurance policy” to assure Sophie gets her operation and is later well taken care of. To conclude, ruined is a phenomenal play exhibiting the roles of women in a war-torn country.
This play carefully outlines the roles of women and how they are treated based on their gender. Many of these women do not have a say so in what happens to them. They are looked at as sexual objects. As a result, it is decided that mutilation will be the answer to keep them from exploring other areas of their sexuality. Honestly it is terrible to see women in different regions of the world looked down upon because of their role in society. Granted that, Nottage does an exceptional job explaining the life of a female who has suffered genital mutilation and how one can succeed beyond means as a
result. Works Cited Nottage, Lynn. Ruined. In The Norton Anthology of Drama, edited by J. Ellen Gainor, Stanton B. Garner Jr., and Martin Puchner, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 1726-1794.
The relationship between male and females within literary works can be expressed in a variety of different ways. Often times, gender roles are solidified to present the man as a dominant and overpowering figure, where the woman is seen as nurturing and are many times objectified due to this nature. In “Poof”, the reader is presented with an example of a woman who is ‘too accepting’ and ‘too giving’ to her male spouse, where as in “Good and Gone”, a male protagonist shatters the dominating nature of the standardized gender roles by loving a woman based off of common interest, not based off of submissive nature. Comparing these two protagonists of both plays, the writers, EP3C and Lynn Nottage, present a duality of dramatic effects by either
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
The article helped a great deal to enlighten me on the cultural and social norms during the time when Shakespeare wrote the play. Understanding the social environment of the Renaissance helps to improve our appreciation of the thoughts that Shakespeare must have had when he devised the plots and the reaction of his actors and the final outcome. Though the major focus of the play, which is a “domestic tragedy” (Vanita), involves love, intrigue, betrayal, and murder which make it interesting, the fact that it includes willful women who are treated abusively and ultimately killed by their husbands not only makes it popular, but very acceptable to the audience of that time.
The characters in the comedy are not realistic, and those that could have been were transformed throughout the course of events depicted. The most trouble with the play, however, seems to come from the representation of the female characters, particularly in comparison with the males. It seems almost that the female characters are written off, rather than merely written out. The male characters of the play are given higher roles, and their characters are followed more faithfully, further proving its chauvinistic composition. The title of the play even suggests a sexist nature in its possible Elizabethan reference to the female genitalia. The play seems to reflect the common thought of its era concerning the social stat...
On the way home, my mom asks me, “Why did you have your arm behind your back the whole time
Octavia Butler depicts how trauma not only affects the slave 's, but the slaveholders. Butler also brings attention to adaptation in her work by using a key literary devices such as foreshadowing to expose the trauma and the cause of that trauma.
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is an ancient traditional non-therapeutic surgical procedure that involves total or partial removal of the external parts of female genitalia. This paper aimed to define and classify FGM, identifies the prevalence, describes reasons for performing the practice, and concentrates on the problems associated to this practice with regard to women’s health, religious beliefs, and socio-cultural, behavioral and moral consequences. Researches and survey reports that the global actions have been taken to reduce or abolish the prevalence of the practice will be assessed.
In Lynn Nottage’s playwright Ruined, some would argue that having been previously raped and sexually tortured, the women working for Mama Nadi are comparatively more sexually empowered when working in the brothel, as they consent to sex with the men; unfortunately, that is not the case. The situation is the same, the women are still being sexually objectified and exploited, only by a different perpetrator—Mama Nadi. Thereby, Mama Nadi is the only character that embodies sexual empowerment in the play. Her sexual empowerment is derived from her ability to take active ownership over her decisions, which are ultimately self-serving. Therefore, by placing Mama Nadi in a position to benefit by treating other women as commodities without regard to their personality or dignity, Nottage creates a unique dynamic in both power relations and conventional gender roles. More specifically, Mama Nadi is advantaged despite the gender norm of women being oppressed in her society. Compared to the other girls, Mama Nadi is substantially well off,
The play is about the difficulties of women during the Democratic Replublic of Congo’s civil war. The story is about the main character Mama Nadi who revolves her life around owning a bar and brothel. She houses and takes care of a number of girl-turned-prostitutes who in return will sleep with her customers. Two of the other main characters in the play are two women that Mama Nadi accepted into her brothel and they have a disturbing past.
In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, the female protagonists of the play, Beatrice and Hero, and Blanche and Stella, are submitted to battles against misogyny. Unlike the stereotypically submissive Elizabethan woman, Beatrice is ready to be ‘a man’ (Act 4.1.315) for the sake of her wronged cousin Hero and duel against ‘Count Comfit’ (Act 4.1.314). Blanche, while fighting against Stanley as ‘he advances’ (Scene Three, page 41) towards, and hurt, Stella, became relatable to a modern day audience when fighting against Domestic Violence. These women challenge the status quo of their eras, whether it is effective or not.
Viewed through the lens of a one kind of feminist critic, we could ask: wasn’t Kate’s “taming” the result of a brutal conditioning by a manipulative Petruchio who was a kind of shrewd “behavioral psychologist?” For at the close of the play, in this passage especially, Kate appears to have metamorphosed from an intractable, ill-tempered woman into a subdued, submissive “Stepford Wife” for Petruchio. And wasn’t her final speech a humilia...
James Wan’s 2011 supernatural American horror film, Insidious, depicts the story of an American nuclear family who move into their new home. Although it’s a fresh start for the Lambert family unexplainable haunting occurs after their oldest son, Dalton, falls into an inexplicable coma. Shortly after Dalton’s parents, Josh and Renai Lambert, experience a series of disturbing, paranormal encounters with evil apparitions. Josh’s mother, Lorraine, seeks a medium for potential answers in why the Lamberts were targets of gruesome spirits. Dalton’s family learns Dalton inherited the gift of astral projection from his father and is the only vessel that can bring Dalton back to safety from The Further.
At the heart of the play lies the central conflict between women’s sexual agency and the traditional policing of women’s bodies, a manifestation of a congruently patriarchal and authoritarian culture. The particular unraveling of the family speaks to the fatal consequences of such repression as a whole upon the “wider body politic” (Bercovici, 9). The play – read not only as a theatrical performance, but as a performance of political struggle – uses the navigation of space to commentate on the loss of the self at the hands of a totalitarian social system. By portraying the simultaneous separation and interaction between the domains of women and men, Lorca examines the interconnected relationship between societal morals and institutions of power, as they become embedded in the staging and setting. The play’s commentary on the historical confinement of women serves doubly as a feminist critique and a “documentation of social protest” against the rising fear of subjugation through domination (Johnson, 56).
For Sophie there were many things that she knew and that was fine with her; however like I said before you did not know her mother and that gave her enough reason to leave everything to go to new york. When the oppourtiny finally came Sophie she had to suck it up and leave on a plane bound for the New World. Meeting Her mother for the first time was very difficult for Sophie; however the most hardest thing to deal with was the tremendous chang...