TheOccurrence of Death in Plays (Zoo Story, M.Butterfly, Purgatory, and Dutchman)

 In this essay, I want to discuss some plays that have some similarities and differences about the occurrence of death. The first play is Zoo Story. In that play, there are two characters, Peter and Jerry. In the beginning of play, Peter did not interest at all to jerry’s conversation. Jerry always brings the idea of Zoo Story, what happened there, and he told the story of him, and the dog. The conflict occurred when jerry and Peter to fight over the bench. Then “With a rush he charges Peter and impales himself on the knife” (Zoo Story:13). The “death” happened because jerry’s character. Jerry makes the conflict and in the end, he killed himself through Peter.

In Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, the characters are Lula and Clay. Lula, thirty-year-old white woman met Clay, twenty-year-old Negro in the train. The similarity of Lula’s  and jerry’s character is they started a chat in that play, and keep asking to other, and make the conflict happened. Lula started making conversation, then seduced Clay, and invited him for having sex after party. The conflict is when Lula mocked Clay. “She switches strategies and mocks Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She rides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies" (Dutchman: scene II). Besides both character Jerry and Lula has similarity, but they also has a difference. In Zoo Story, Jerry kills himself through Peter, but in Dutchman, Lula kills Clay. “killed himself” also occurred in M.Butterfly.

In M.Butterfly,Gallimard interested to Song. Those characters created the story become ironic. Song camouflage himself being oriental woman who attracted Gallimard. In the end of play, Gallimard performed Seppuku by wear Kimono. He said; “Women willing to sacrifice themselves for the love of man. Even a man whose love is completely without worth,… Death with honor is better than life”(M.Buttterfly : ACT 3 Scene 3). In Zoo Story, Jerry kills himself in the zoo to create how the Zoo Story happened, but, in M.Butterfly, gallimard kills himself after he found out about Song who actually was a man and in the end, he declared himself being butterfly, whereas at first, Galiimmard mentioned that butterfly is Song. The Performance before ”death” is also showed in Purgatory.

Purgatory by Yeats is the play that told about Old man and the boy. The meaning of Purgatory is the anniversary of the old man’s wedding night/the night wherein he was begotten or A silhouette of a lonely young girl/the old man’s mother. In this play, the old man kills his father and his son for the soul of his mother. “Release my mother’s soul from its dream! Mankind can do no more. Appease The misery of living and remorse of the dead” (Purgatory:7). The old man still kills his son, and he said that twice murderer and all for nothing. The old man did that, because he won’t his son repeat what he done, so that the old man kills his son. In M.butterfly, Gallimard performed Seppuku for his dishonor life. The “death” in Purgatory has similarity with Dutchman. In these plays, the main character kills others. Lula kills Clay and the old man kills the boy.

Those four plays have similarity and differences build by characters, conflict and theme. The characters in Zoo Story and Dutchman build the relationship between characters and the conflict but the occurrence of death (conflict) is different. Dutchman has same conflict with purgatory. It is “Kill other character”. In M.Butterfly and Zoo Story also has same conflict, it is “kill himself”, and then the performance before “death” occurred in Purgatory and M.Butterfly with different goal (Purgatory : for other, and M.butterfly : for himself).  The tool that used for “death” in four plays is same. It is a knife. In King Lear, the death of Cordelia by hung up, and in the Real Inspector Hound, the tool is a gun.

The occurrence of death is associated with body, because the death will happen if a thing (knife, gun, string) insisted to touch the body or there is something missing or gone of the body (soul). The occurrence of the death in those plays is important to create the conflict there. For example is the Zoo Story. In the beginning of the Zoo Story, the characters just having a chat, the story is simple but in the end, the death occurred when the characters have fought each other just for “the bench”. 

(Response 1)

Gender-stereotypes in Dutchman and M. Butterfly

Both Dutchman and M. Butterfly focus on two main characters. Dutchman is Lula and Clay. The contrast between two characters that Lula is “a tall, slender, beautiful woman with long red hair…wearing only loud lipstick in somebody’s good taste” (p. 1896). Clay is described as a young, middle-class, educated black man. He wears three-button suit, reading books, pretty much suggesting that he talks, acts and dresses like a white man (p. 1901). In this play, both Lula and clay indicate there is a gender stereotype. According Eagly and Steffen in their journal ; “A gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles, “A gender stereotype consists belief about the psychological and characteristic of, as well as the activities appropriate to, men or women. Gender stereotype are beliefs and attitudes about masculinity and feminity.” Lula’s role in the play shows female control. She controls conversation with Clay, and the whole play. Besides, Clay is passive and looks intimidated. From beginning, when Lula asks about he was staring at her through window, Clay shows his nervous in front of woman. Even Lula has to say twice that he was staring at her. Lula’s role shows masculinity even though she is a woman. In Dutchman, gender stereotype influenced by a race between black and white. The characters change their attitude in the climax when Lula started to mock black people.

In M. Butterfly, gender stereotype is about oriental woman which presented by Song Liling that makes Galimmard to be fooled by Song over twenty years. Gallimmard and Song have a sexual affair. Song takes advantage from Galimmard, because he considers Song as woman. He also believes that oriental woman as submissive and shy; “in real life, women who put their total worth at less than sixty-six cents are quite hard to find” (13) he thinks that oriental woman more modest than western woman. In this play, the stereotypes of race showed by the idea of East and West. Galimmard as Western man demonstrated the real masculinity, he said “Orientals will always submit to a greater force” (37) and Song as oriental woman indicates “Femininity”. The truth about Song is a man changes the stereotype between them. Gallimard the symbol of “masculine” being feminine because in the end, he still chooses his fantasy that Song is his butterfly. Song, the symbol of “feminine” becomes Oriental man that shows his masculinity in exposing his true identity.

Bibliography

Baraka, A. (1980). Dutchman. In G. McMichael, Anthology of American Literature. New York: MacMillan Publishing.

Hwang, D. H.(1986). " M. Butterfly":

Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46(4), 735

(Response 2)

Identity Confusion of character in Dutchman by Amiri Baraka

Dutchman is a play written by African-American playwright Amiri Baraka. The play published in late 19 century. The play focuses on the two characters, Lula and Clay. Lula is thirty-year-old white woman rides the train, and sat close to Clay, twenty-year-old Negro. In the beginning, the plot built by Lula. Lula accuses him that he was staring at her through window. Then she guesses what his past and his friend, Warren that makes Clay shocked of her knowledge. They engage in a long and flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride. Lula keeps asking to Clay. She even asked him to invite him to the party and after that alluded to having sex with Clay at her "apartment". The conflict begins when she failed to manipulated him. She mocks him about Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She rides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies". (p.847) Then, in the end of play, Lula kills Clay.

The confusion identity also existed in “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. The difference of those is in Orwell’s, the main character confused in himself about being colonizer. He is as a police officer in Burma. The Burmese hate him, because he is white people (European), but he would become a hero by shot an elephant. “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.” (Orwell, 1936). He was struggle with himself when he was in condition to shoot the elephant. In the end, he shows his mind of being colonizer when shooting an elephant.

In Dutchman play, the confusion identity of main character, Clay appeared after Lula mocked him about black people. In the beginning of play, Lula said about Clay’s appearance “You look like you’ve been trying to grow a beard. That’s exactly what you look like. You look like you live in New Jersey with your parents and are trying to grow a beard. That’s what. You look like you’ve been reading Chinese poetry and drinking lukewarm sugarless tea. (Laughs, uncrossing and recrossing her legs) You look like death eating a soda cracker. (p. 100). In this play, Lula brings the conversation alive. She keeps offering apple to Clay. Many critics argue that “Apple” related to an allusion to Biblical Eve. Lula seduced him with apple. “Eating apples together is always the first step. Or waking up uninhibited Seventh Avenue in the twenties on weekends” (p. 150). The apple becomes symbolic which is related to Clay’s identity in this play. First, when Lula always offers the apple, Clay answered with “Hey, what was in those apples? Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s fairest one of all? Snow White, baby, and don’t you forget it.”(P.855). Snow White is the story about the girl poisoned with apple by a witch. That story is similar with Lula’s. She is a white woman who brings the apple which means Lula could be a witch to poison him.

Besides, In North America, an American Indian (Native American) is called an "apple" (a slur that stands for someone who is "red on the outside, white on the inside.") primarily by other American Indians to indicate someone who has lost touch with their cultural identity. First used in the 1980s. The significance of the term “apple” is that Dutchman play also published in 1980. Clay’s appearance shows loss of cultural identity. Cultural identity is about location, gender, race, history, nationality, language, sexuality, religious beliefs, ethnicity, aesthetics, and even food. When he in long monologue to respond Lula’s lack of knowledge about Black people, he forget that he dresses, talks, and acts like white people. When their conversations begin, Lula asks him if he was staring at her through window, Clay answers that he did not. He just looks window and he does not know he was staring. In that conversation, Clay looks nervous in front of white woman. Eldridge Cleaver described the soul-lacerating effects of that history four years later, in his memoir, “Soul on Ice”: “The white man forbade me to have the white woman on pain of death. . . . Men die for freedom but black men die for white women, who are the symbol of freedom. . . . Until the day I can have a white woman in my bed . . . I will still be a slave.” Although Clay dresses like white people but he could not cover his reaction to white woman.

The confusion identity of Clay shows that the culture has been distorted (Multiculturalism). Multiculturalism is the cultural diversity of communities within a given society and the policies that promote this diversity. As a descriptive term, multiculturalism is the simple fact of cultural diversity and the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometimes at the organizational level, e.g., schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations. (Encyclopedia 1). In this play, a black man who strives to defend his culture actually tries to follow another culture. I think the speaker wants to show that multiculturalism could not accept easily. This play also related to ‘Black National Movement”. Black Nationalism advocates a racial definition (or redefinition) of national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. (Encyclopedia 2). Amiri Baraka is also joins that community.

This play shows that the confusion identity of Clay described how a black man in disguise being a white man. He leaves his own culture and follows other culture. In the end, it brings him in the death. The idea of disguise occurred in some plays (M. Butterfly, King Lear), but the disguise in Dutchman play is clearly seen from Clay’s body (he cannot cover his skin even though he talks, dresses, and acts like white man).

Bibliography

Baraka, A. (1980). Dutchman. In G. McMichael, Anthology of American Literature. New York: MacMillan Publishing.

Orwell, George. 1936. Shooting an Elephant. Retrieved on Friday, March 15 2013 at 20.00 PM from http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/

Cleaver, E., & Geismar, M. (1968). Soul on ice (p. 9799103). New York: Dell.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2007/02/05/070205crth_theatre_als?currentPage=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_nationalism

(Final paper)