TRAPPED INSIDE SOCIETY
OR
EVE - AN IMPROVED VERSION OF ADAM
This term paper will show to what a great extent society is influenced by men. I suggest that in Marsha Normanôs play "Getting Out"1 her protagonist Arlene would never have faced so many problems in life, let alone would have become criminal, if men did not possess such a great power over society. Men being in power throughout the world was certainly the worst thing that could ever have happened in human history, Arlene being a representative of all the women living and having lived on earth, even if a very extreme one. But in favor of men, I claim that men are not really guilty either because society has become autonomous and cannot be controlled anymore.
The basis for my thesis is Gretchen Clineôs essay entitled "The Impossibility of Getting Out - The Psychopolitics of the family in Marsha Normanôs Getting Out"2 which contains feminist, psychoanalytic and existential frameworks to show Arlene Holsclawôs oppression within a family that parallels the institutions that bind her.
Cline herself uses Walter Davisô theory of the "crypt"3 to analyze Arleneôs familial and the subsequent social scapegoating in order to show how women are shaped by a society in which the most moral institutions, such as family and religion, justify violation and oppression.
The theory of the "crypt" suggests ways in which core family issues are bracketed by families or individuals. When a human being reaches the stage of the "ego", he or she has to suppress certain deep desires. According to Davis that is the very moment the psyche is born. What sets off this change is first of all humiliation inflicted by an Other. The human being who has been humiliated starts to envy the Otherôs superiority and...
Good!
This is a well-written and thorough analysis of the play "Getting Out" as well as a gripping comparison to regular society and what the "norm" is.
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