Analysis Of Arnold Wesker's 'The Kitchen'

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

Elizabeth’s younger self is developed in the context of 1960’s London. The 1960s was considered a decade of change for women ; birth control pills being approved for the first time and women entering the work force and protesting gender disparities in pay . Elizabeth is depicted by Bovell as a fiercely intelligent woman, still in the prime of her life when we first meet her in her “small flat in London.” Living in the 60s, she would have been full of expectation and hope for the future, grasping at any opportunity, making it all the more tragic when it is all torn away from her and she is left alone with a life she never wanted: the life of a single mother. It is her story that is the origin of the problems faced by all other characters in the play, setting up Bovell’s themes of intergenerational trauma and failure. It was within this context that I first started a more holistic interpretation of her character. Furthermore, the contemporary nature of our performance of When The Rain Stops Falling has allowed me to explore her character in greater depth, as the non-linear, multi-generational nature of the play has given me an insight into Elizabeth’s future life, providing more weight and meaning to the circumstances in her earlier appearances, and how

In a patriarchal society, women are expected to conform to social restrictions by demonstrating reverence and obedience to the males in their lives. Shakespeare's tragic play, Romeo and Juliet, explores the effects of patriarchal authority exerted over women and how the patriarchal structure left no escape from it, save death. Through Juliet, Lady Capulet, and the Nurse, Shakespeare establishes a common understanding of this type of society, but illuminates three different reactions to the social oppression by portraying the responses of a passionate lover, an idyllic housewife, and an attendant.

In the early 1900´s women did not have the same rights as men and are not respected as much as men either. Women did not get their voting rights till 1920, four years after the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. In the play women are suppressed by men and society, Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peters prove that women are not constrained by society's rules and are in fact, the most astute characters in *Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles”*.

Three people from three different backgrounds all with their own unique stories. It is amazing how diverse the world can be. Despite being so different these three people are all vastly similar in the methods they use to sway an audience. Daniel, the writer of The Necessity believes that parades are essential. This very simple display of culture allows normal everyday people the chance to escape from their deeply depressing lives and show a bit of pride. Fong, the writer of Rice for Thanksgiving has a particularly interesting reflection on his family history. Despite the troubles they went through due to discrimination he still believes in the melting pot that is America. Chelsey the writer of Taking the Bus talks about how her experiences with new and strange people on the bus have changed her outlook on life. The interactions with these people give her some perspective on how her life fits in in the grand scheme of things. All of these stories are different yet they all do one very similar thing. They use the human capacity for sympathy as a means of swaying the reader.

The first essay, “The Roles of Women in British Drama,” represents my first exposure to a new genre of literature. The essay was also one of my first formal and interpretative essays at the college level. As a woman and a student of literature, I feel a special connection to this essay’s topic of women’s roles in literature. In addition, this essay shows my “knowledge of the social, political, philosophical, and religious forces that influence authors and the people they write about” (Oral/Portfolio). After reading some of the most prominent British plays of the twentieth century, I observed a discontinuity in the roles of women in this genre. Sadly, women’s roles in literature were very similar to their role in society. During the twentieth century, women were still trying and failing to emerge out of the roles they had been cast in by a male dominated society. Even though women were almost always portrayed as inferior to men, I found a strong exception to this stereotype through the role of Thomasina. I admire Thomasina’s intelligence and wit, but I truly admire Tom Stoppard for creating this character.

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is situated in 1916 and is a one act play which incorporates essential components of what the women’s rights movement was about. After moving on from Iowa’s Drake University in 1899, Glaspell commenced her writing vocation of composing short stories and books. The play from Glaspell recounts the story of a homicide mystery involving the married couple of Mrs. Wright (Minnie) and her spouse, the murder victim, John Wright; this story also incorporates the outlook of society towards women being viewed as beneath men. “Trifles” demonstrates the unfair mentality regularly acknowledged among men towards women in 1916. In addition, it showcases the big role comradery plays for women in becoming equal represented

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.

Throughout essay “In the Kitchen,” Henry Louis Gates Junior recalls a time when he and his friends and family constantly tried to straighten their African American “kinky” hair. They did this to try to fit in with white people. The writer is using his personal experience as an African American straightening his hair to show how black people felt about assimilating into white society. It was very difficult for blacks to fit in with white people but he remembers how this difficult time brought the black community together.

In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men

In the late ninetieth and early twentieth centuries women were thought of as dolls, puppets, or property. In many cases, they weren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves. Women were only good at worrying about frivolous housework and lighthearted pleasantries. In the two plays “A Doll House” by Heinrich Ibsen, and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, there are several exploitations of this way of thinking.

The plot of both Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” provides scope for a few scenes that lack the presence of all or any men. These scenes, consisting of communication between the female characters, assist in developing the theme of women openly defying the fact that the society they live in is primarily run by men. All the power and authority in their society, no matter the situation, belongs to the men while the women are simply excluded. The women in these plays defy the norms set by society and manage to evade the expectations of their patriarchal societies.

In most early British literature a woman is often presented as only one thing: an object. They can be objects of desire, objects of beauty, or merely objects to be owned, but it is rare that a woman is anything more than that. It is even more uncommon to find a female character in literature that is presented as an equal to the men around her. In William Congreve's The Way of the World he plays on the similarities of both his female and male characters to establish just how much of an issue gender really is because though their actions might be similar, the consequences are not.

Never have I taken the time to think of the significance of the kitchen table in my life, but I have come to realize that my kitchen table has always been a place to unwind and share with my family members. From childhood to my adult hood, I have always come to the kitchen table in celebration, conference, in search of security, and enjoyment. The kitchen table of the past always brought my family together, and the table in my present brings focus to my school work and an occasional “catch up” conversation with my family, and in the future I hope to have a similar kitchen table setting as I did in my childhood, but with my own style.

It’s a hot, sticky summer afternoon in Iowa in 1910. A woman stands in the kitchen cleaning the grease from her husband’s daily work. After finally managing to make her newborn lay down for a nap, her husband busts through the front door, waking the baby. While comforting the baby, she asks her husband what his reason is for making such a ruckus. Ignoring the question, he asks for his cigars. She hands them to him as he walks out the front door. He says that he is going back to town to fetch some things. She asks if she can go with him since she’s been at home all day, but he denies her request by saying that she needs to be at home with the baby and not busy with other unimportant things. This is what women of that time and even some women now would experience in their daily life. Gender inequality has always been occurring, and it is a major obstacle being tackled today. Problems with the education system, workforce, and marriages have existed for many years, and the feminist movement was created to combat these problems. Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is one of the first feminist pieces of literature. Many themes arise in the one-act play, but the most important theme is the idea of gender separation. In the play Trifles, Glaspell uses mystery to display the theme of gender separation and to uncover an implicit conflict.