In act two, scene three of Warren's play "The Group", I came across a passage that disturbed me at first and begged me to reexamine Warren's purpose in writing it. Hateall, in an exchange with Sylla and Simple, completely slams women and their value as people. In the dialogue beginning with "what's a woman's tears...", Hateall shamelessly takes shots at women reducing them to the value of their dowry. He also exclaims that women should be subservient to their husbands; always listening and never daring to go against their husbands will.
It took me some time to figure out why exactly Warren would include a section so derogatory towards women, and I cannot say I totally understand why. The play seems mostly to be a satire of over zealous men and their misguided reasons for making the decisions they make. If that is the case, then perhaps she is trying to point out an extreme stereotype she noticed men harbored against women. Not that all men were women haters, but that she noticed a trend in some part of the culture and hoped to point it out by taking it to the extreme in a sort of humorous form. Sometimes the only way to talk about a serious issue is through humor, as we've learned from many comedians of today.
1 comment:
Chris,
Great job zeroing in on a particular passage and asking an important question about it. Next time expand on your idea more--this post is too short. Here, for example, you could have said more about the potential for humor in a derogatory comment about women spoken by a male character but written by a female author. Would that comment have been funny if it were written by a male author, for example?
Kelly
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