Essay on A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney

However, Susan Glaspell uses the kitchen in the plot as another theatrical metaphor for a domain of gender identification because it is a women’s domestic territory where women’s life is revealed through common kitchen items. Throughout the play, we can distinguish the roles given to women in that era. In this era, women’s roles were generally reproductive, so they have been relegated to the home with less interaction with the outside world. Because kitchens have often served as work spaces, women have found a sense of empowerment through domestic tasks such as cooking, food knowledge, and efficiency of the kitchen. These conditions reveal the state of mind of women in the play. Minnie Wright’s “gloomy kitchen” (Glaspell 443) is “left without having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the breadbox, a dish towel on the table—other signs of incompleted work” (Glaspell 443). She lost her motivation to do housework chores, which represents that her mind is battered and leads to Mr. Wright’s murder—he has distorted her life.

proportions. Written in 1916, the play deals with the theme of the roles of women in society. This was a

The play examines the relationships between husbands and wives and reflects stereotypes of gender, particularly a marriage that ended in murder. The setting, a messy kitchen, reflects to me that the women stand together, emphasizing both the way they have been pushed together by their male-dominated society but also, possibly, their loyalty to each other over their husbands, a topic explored in the play. The men repeatedly dismiss things as beneath their notice if they are things such as the canning jars of fruit that are, in their opinions, women’s concerns. The men never recognize that they have forced the women to be concerned about these things, by not allowing them to be concerned about anything else. The men’s dismissal reflects a larger mindset of devaluing women and their opinions and interests in general.

Class plays a big part in marxist literary criticism. Marx defines class as a division of society based on social and economical status (Parker 4). Even though it was more prominent earlier in history, it still exists in today’s society. Class has a big influence on a person’s habits, relationships with others, and the type of work they do. Moon says, “Class divisions always reflect the beliefs and values of specific groups of people” (18). This is shown in “Paul’s Case”, A Touch of Class, and “The Queer feet”. Characters in these stories experience their place in the class system through events that occur in each story such as Paul’s experience in New York, Basil’s delusion, and the silverware scandal.

views of equal rights for both sexes which are vital. At the time the play was written, it was known for being negative towards women as they did not dare to stand for themselves. The play

Initially, Priestley presents Sheila as a lively, ‘very pleased with life’ girl and Mrs Birling as ‘a rather cold woman’, however their viewpoints are still shown to be quite similar and that of a typical capitalist. From the start of the play, Mrs Birling is portrayed as a stubborn woman who will not accept any blame for her actions because she thinks she is ‘superior’ in comparison to other people, which is shown when she says ‘Girls of that class.’ Mrs Birling shows very little respect for the working class and due to Mrs Birling being a representative of the capitalists, Priestley is able to show that capitalists are less likely to care about the problems that the working class face, thus they are less likely to accept the concept of collective responsibility. Furthermore, when she is subjected to criticism, she avoids the blame using

Burt’s Bees is an interesting case, which discusses the success story of an all natural skin care company. It is an unusual concept but the founder Roxanne Quimby saw the market for such a product and immediately started acting upon this opportunity to create the best skin care company in the world. It was interesting to notice how Roxanne and the co-founder Burt Shovitz started the concept of natural skin care products just for the extra income and then went on to make it their core product of the company. This is the best example of an unpredictable market. Another interesting factor of the company is its use of natural products, keeping in mind the environment. The company doesn’t test its

In this essay I am going to be discussing to what extent I agree with the quote “Women’s roles are often stereotyped in dramatic comedy” and if I believe it is the case in Educating Rita. In these times working class women were always stereotyped as starting a family for their husband’s and not being as equal as men therefore not treated the same. In the 1980’s women were expected to start family’s and to be a housewife for their husband. They were known as the working class.

She always had a positive attitude and always had hope that they would make it out and be able to live a normal life again. Whenever I listened to the play I had a vizule in my head of how desperate she was and how hard she tried to have hope and freedom. We need to be more grateful today for our lives because millions of jews died in the Holocaust.

Throughout the play, it seems that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are trapped in the kitchen, while the men travel freely to search other parts of the house. For example, the County Attorney declared to solely investigate the upstairs of the house and the barn, while refusing to search the kitchen because they believe it would not point to any motive of the murder (Glaspell 1040). The men proceed upstairs and to the barn, but the women are glued to the kitchen as well as the readers. The readers observe everything that the women are doing, but have no clue what the men are doing elsewhere. This illustrates a sense of imprisonment and isolation that women are forced to deal and live with. In addition to the play’s fixed setting, Glaspell’s cunning utilization of the title brings up a broad criticism of feminist issues arising in and outside the home. For instance, McDaniel’s essay proves this point here: “The title of the play and its ironic underscoring of any "trivial" nature attributed to women's daily lives and their often labor-intensive-if-tedious work (Minnie Wright's sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc.) is considered an astute observation on the demeaning, insignificant characterization of women's labor and their lives within domesticity” (1). McDaniel proposes that

After taking this history class I have learned about many plays and some of them were actually very interesting. Plays are written for entertainment, however they always have a message for the audience, and it can either be a positive or a negative message. If my kids went to college and took a history class like the one I am in now, a play that I would want them to learn about is, A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen. I would want my kids to learn about this play because this play is very important and it’s full of themes. One theme that particularly stood out to me and I would want my kids to learn in college is about marriage. Marriage is one of the themes that is a major thing in this play. The main message of A Doll’s House, is that

The play focused on women’s suffrage in Norway in 1890, emphasizing Hedda Gabler’s failure to showcase womanly traits acceptable by society at the time. Hedda throughout the play appears discontent with her life, which later results in her suicide. Hedda finds herself restricted by the domestic duties placed upon her, but due to her fear of scandals, is prevented from committing an act of the forbidden. From the discussions that took place, I learned

Unlike typical tragedies, Miller focuses the play on the working class to express their common attributes to their society as were the Greek tragedies that focused on royalty and the society in the play left women feeling subjugated by the men. For instance, when Beatrice asks Eddie whether - ‘you gonna keep in the house all her life?’ The assertive tone of the rhetorical question shows the support that Catherine has from Beatrice and reflects her struggle to be free from Eddie’s grip. The usage of the pathos evokes pity towards the audience as they would be pitiful towards Catherine. Furthermore, Catherine is another female in A View from the Bridge who is subjugated by Eddie. In the beginning of act one, Eddie mentions Catherine’s new dress, saying that – ‘heads are turnin’ like windmills.’ The systolic device enables the playwright to create the epitome of sexual attraction to the audience members and shows the dominance in Eddie’s office.

Class bias determines attitude of people to social relations and culture (Bryant-Bertail, 2). The character of Betty was brought up in a Victorian era where proper upper class women were objects intended to please their respective men; their function was to be pleasing and reproductive, not to think. In the second act of the play Betty shows how her attitude toward women has been skewed by her Victorian upbringing in a conversation she has with Lin:

One of the plays in which Churchill focuses on women’s oppression is Vinegar Tom. The main character is Alice, a single mother in her twenties who lives in a small village. Alice and her mother Joan