Men as Scapegoats in The Manchurian Candidate
“Every compulsively brutal blow… from the hands of that young man who… could not begin to reach her understanding or her feeling had beaten a deep distaste and contempt for all men since her father” (59).
Many times it takes the force of a catalyst to induce malicious or immoral behavior in a person. When a certain event takes place in one’s life where the person is forced to resent and loathe another person who was involved in ruining or hurting them in some way, this dramatically impacts the way she relates and behaves around other people. In the novel The Manchurian Candidate, Condon creates two characters battling profound inner conflict: Raymond Shaw and his mother Eleanor Iselin. Raymond Shaw is a former sergeant for the U.S. Army and someone many people find hard to get along with and enjoy his company. He endured much suffering while he was growing up, such as the suicide of his father, and because of the traumatic circumstances of his childhood, he strongly detests his cruel mother. Eleanor Iselin, also referred to as Ellie, is similar to Raymond in that she is trying to bear with the tragic events that occurred in her adolescence as well. Although at first glace Ellie Iselin can be deemed a psychotic, power-hungry fiend who frequently takes advantage of people to get whatever she wants no matter the cost, this is not always the case. Condon is representing Ellie in this way because it reveals the rising need for power and equality that women in the 1950’s had been fighting for and were just beginning to acquire. He creates a complicated character such as Ellie to give readers the opportunity to understand why she behaves the way she does. For every emotional shortcoming a person has, there is always a sad and complicated story behind it. Because of Ellie’s constant struggle with her insecurity, she uses men as scapegoats in order to gain power and fulfill inadequacies in her life.
All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others. For a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm and clenched his fist against her.
“She lay awake, gazing upon the debris that cluttered their matrimonial trail. Not an image left standing along the way. Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart. Her tears, her sweat, her blood. She had brought love to the union and he had brought a longing after the flesh. Two months after the wedding, he had given her the first brutal beating. She had the memory of his numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages when he had returned to her penniless, even before the first year had passed. She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, muscles limbs, her harsh knuckly hands, and drew herself up into an unhappy little ball in the middle of the big feather bed. Too late now to hope for love, even if it were not Bertha it would be someone else. This case differed from the others only in that she was bolder than the others. Too late for everything except her little home. She had built it for her old days, and planted one by one the trees and flowers there. It was lovely to her, lovely.” (Hurston 680).
Throughout history, men are taught that they are the head of the household. This idea is implicated in everyday society. At some point in history women were expected to submit to a men commands. One poem in particular that gives us an inside idea of what it was like growing up during the 1950s is called Sixth Grade written by Marie Howe. This poem speaks about sexual harassment that can be interpreted as six grade version of rape, innocence, and gender role. Howe uses limited use symbolism but crucial to connect her to her audience and to make a statement about where the origin of male violence originated.
The misfortunes Jane was given early in life didn’t alter her passionate thinking. As a child she ...
robbed her, as people will ” (417) Due to that fact that her father has driven all the men
Douglass then goes on to describe how slavery and his mistress husband’s beliefs alter her demeanor, for example, he writes about her “tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” He
For some people a sad story, yet for others a message to the people that see the movie. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is a movie made after the time of the Cold War (1945-1952) . Indeed, there are reasons to believe that this movie is anti-communist by the fact that it presents traits of some Cold War features such as espionage and maybe proof of McCarthyism.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
He wanted to swim through her blood and climb up and down her spine and drink from her ovaries and press his gums against the firm red muscle of her heart. He wanted to suture their lives together.? This quote can portray Johns disturbed mind set, we see that he is consumed with rage ...
She even insults him by telling him that the only way he’ll be able to prove his manhood to her is to commit murder, since he hasn’t already proved it to her by “giving her a son.” That was a very, very harsh insult because in those times, males were everything. (p.9, The Follies of Power)
Sometimes trying to conform to society’s expectations becomes extremely overwhelming, especially if you’re a woman. Not until recent years have woman become much more independent and to some extent equalized to men. However going back to the 19th century, women were much more restrained. From the beginning we perceive the narrator as an imaginative woman, in tune with her surroundings. The narrator is undoubtedly a very intellectual woman. Conversely, she lives in a society which views women who demonstrate intellectual potential as eccentric, strange, or as in this situation, ill. She is made to believe by her husband and physician that she has “temporary nervous depression --a slight hysterical tendency” and should restrain herself from any intellectual exercises in order to get well (Gilman 487). The narrator was not allowed to write or in any way freely...
The conflict continues in the next passage, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away...
When tragedy strikes, it is normal for individuals to go through stages of grief. In some situations, people become cemented in one stage of emotional instability. They focus so much on their anger over the inevitability of the unfairness of life, that it eventually makes them go mad. This theme composes the synopsis of Joyce Carol Oates’ book We Were the Mulvaneys. The rape of Marianne Mulvaney catalyzed the disembowelment of the Mulvaney family due to their inability to move on from their grief; each family member coped in unique manners.
The Manchurian incident was a turning point in Japanese history in which it abandoned its somewhat general policy of cooperation and peace and instead chose to pursue their personal interests in Asia (S,191). The Japanese interest in China was evident even before its invasion in 1931. In both the Sino Japanese war from 1894 to 1905 as well as the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905 Japan secured specific locations in Manchuria and other areas in China (U,351). Overall, the consensus for the extensive needs of the empire ultimately drove its policy making until the end of World War 2. To take control of what they believed to be the most mineral rich section of China in which they controlled expansive holdings in such as the South Manchurian Railroad, officers part of the Kwantung Army that were stationed there hatched a plan that would become to be known as the Manchurian Crisis. On September 18th 1931, Japanese soldiers located at the South Manchurian Railroad set off an explosive that they blamed on China (launching both nations into hostile relations for years to come.?? (P,115)) The Japanese invaded Japanese Invaded Chinese controlled Manchuria in 1931 because they wanted to accommodate the rising of the Japanese population, obtain more natural resources, and to stimulate their nearly collapsed economy.
Cohen, Ralph. “The Reversal of Gender in "The Rape of the Lock." South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol.