Mulatto

Color Struck wasn’t exactly the best play I ever read. I did like reading it because of its interesting dialogue that conveys that the characters are African Americans from the south. Overall, the play wasn’t that bad. It’s interesting because it depicts the same problems we have today. I did have an issue with both of the main characters, Emma and John, however.

Let’s start with Emma. I understand that she had self esteem issues about her skin tone because lighter skin girls got more attention from society, but sometimes she got so paranoid, that she was almost obnoxious. John may have sent some flirtatious messages to Effie, but it got to the point where Emma didn’t even want him looking at her or anyone else that was female. I think that could get a little annoying if you are in a relationship with someone because not only does he know that she has low self esteem which would not be attractive to most guys, but she was too paranoid. When I was reading the play, there were some parts of it, where I just wanted to tell her to shut up. For example, the fact that she didn’t want to go on stage with John, seemed so stubborn. It was pointless for her to not have gone since John would have danced with only her anyway. This jealousy and paranoia may have been the cause of her daughter’s death and I think that is very selfish of her. I know that she was stunned to see john, but she cared more about him liking her “mulatto” daughter, than actually getting her sick daughter help immediately. I think her jealousy was one of the reasons why she had a bad life. Maybe it was because in a way she pushed everybody out of it unknowingly due to her self esteem. Not just john, because he himself wasn’t exactly a great person, but if she was like that with John, then she may have been like that with any guy that she dated.

Also John’s character was kind of selfish in a way. As much as Emma told him how she felt about him flirting with lighter skinned women, he did it anyway. He didn’t seem to have any respect for her or for the way she feels. I thought it was really disrespectful when he came back to her 20 years later when his wife died, just because he wanted to get married. Emma was like his backup plan. To be honest, if I was Emma, I would have married John just to use him since she was so poor and still had feelings for him anyway. However, I did feel John was right when he told Emma that “she despises her own skin, that she can’t believe anyone else would love it.”

            I thought the article “She’s Pretty for a Dark-Skinned Girl…”was very interesting because the author was right when she said that lighter skin girls are always more adored than the darker skin ones. Many models today are light skin, in hip-hop music videos, most of the girls are either light skin or not even black. I just can’t understand why African American’s themselves think darker skin girls are less attractive. It’s crazy how they still have this depiction till today. This article is very relevant to my personal experiences, because when I was in high school, I would always notice that the light skin girls do get a lot more attention from guys than the darker skin girls. I think all types of race, and culture is beautiful. It’s sad that this has been a stereotype now, that lighter is more beautiful.

Lady Windermere's Fan

Out of both the plays we read this week, my favorite would have to be “Lady Windermere’s Fan” only because I got into it the most. I had a much harder time getting into the first play, “A Woman of no importance” although I did enjoy it most towards the end. Both plays however, shared some of the same things. They both criticized the English society, which I guess Oscar Wilde did purposely to show how they are all about higher class and social ranking, and that’s what matters to them. Also, both plays focused on women who was each deceived by a man. In “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, Mrs. Erlynne, betrayed her husband and daughter for another man, but he had also betrayed her, leaving her with nothing. In “A Woman of No Importance”, Lord Illingworth lied to Mrs. Arbuthnot when she got pregnant with his child and promised her he would marry her. Of course, he never did, which made her live a secret and guilty life of sin.

            In “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, the fan played a lot of significance in the play. Although it was just an unimportant object that Lady Windermere received as a birthday gift from her husband, we see it throughout the whole play and it became important to a few characters. For example, from the beginning of the play we see it as being significant because it was a birthday present from Lady Windermere’s husband, who throughout the play was the one who was thought to have been cheating on her that whole time. We then see it as a weapon against Mrs. Erlynne, when Lady Windermere threatened to hit her with it if she had come to her birthday ball. We then see it when it is left in Lord Darlington’s room and Mrs. Erlynne told the men, she thought it was her own fan and grabbed it by mistake. She then wanted to keep it purposely to remember her daughter by. Not only that, but Lord Windermere, wanted to get rid of it even though it was his own gift, because he had thought of it to be in the hands of a sinner, something that shouldn’t be touch by his wife who is known to be pure and of innocence.

            Overall I liked the play. It was kind of interesting reading something from the Victorian period in England, where we can see how the high class interacted with each other. I think Oscar Wilde made a great point in showing how English people care more about their money and their reputation, than someone who is a puritan, who in both plays, were looked down at.

Getting Out

Getting out is a play written by Marsha Norman about a young woman “Arlie” who’s messed up childhood and family led her to becoming a criminal and led her to ending up in jail. She was a prostitute, a murderer, and a thief. Unlike “The Bad Seed”, she wasn’t just naturally bad, but she lived in a bad environment that made her become that way. Her mom was also a prostitute, her siblings all had problems as well and her family was really poor. I guess she wanted to make her life better by earning easy money through prostitution and learned to become defensive towards everyone in her life by acting bad.

What’s interesting about this play is it doesn’t actually take place in her jail cell but takes place in her small broken down apartment when she’s finally out after eight whole years of being in jail. We are now introduced to two different Arlene’s. We get to see Arlene who is the good version of the Arlie from the past who was bad. The whole play basically focuses on the flashbacks Arlene encounters with her enemy, who is herself from the past. We realize that Arlene wants to change but her past memories are still getting in the way. There are other things that get in the way also. One thing is her mom, who we see doesn’t really get along with her and tells her that she’s basically not going to change and she assumes that she slept with the prison guard. Another person we see is Carl who is her ex boyfriend and pimp who visits her a couple times to try to talk her into prostitution again. He tells her that the only way she can really get her life together and earn big money fast is to prostitute. He also tries to lure her back into doing this by mentioning her son, who we see is a really big influence in the play for why Arlene wants to change so much, although he is not physically in the play. Carl tells Arlene that she would be making more money through prostitution and would be able to send Joey, her son gifts and her son would be proud that his mom is rich. However, towards the end we see that Arlene is a stronger character than Arlie and makes the right decision to not go with Carl. Ruby, her neighbor who was also an ex-convict plays another big role in the play by telling her not to give up and things will get better for her. She finally convinces her to not go back to the past because she shares her own story with her, of how she through a jug of milk outside the window and instead of breaking and spilling, it bounced back up meaning her life can do the same.

In my opinion, I didn’t like this play as much as I did the other modern plays that we read, such as “Trifles” and “The Bad Seed”. I didn’t like it because to me, it didn’t really have a plot. We just get to see her bad self and her good self. I guess this play would be better to watch than to read, because it gets a little confusing when Arlie jumps right in the middle of a scene. However, I did like the symbolism of the jug of milk. I did like the fact that Arlie became a strong character to resist some opportunities that came to her to get her to take the easy way out again. I also like how she encounters some bad people and some good people and get to see which side she decides to take which wasn’t really obvious because she lived a life of crime all her life. Bennie seems like a very random character in the play because we don’t really get to know for sure if he’s a good or bad character. He’s seen as being the nice guard while she was in jail and drives across the country to get her settled in, but then he tries to rape her who I found to be odd. He just seemed kind of creepy to me since he was like 50. I would think he would be more like a fatherly figure.

I enjoyed reading the article about women having to keep their babies with them in the prison. Im not really sure if that is a good idea or bad idea. It’s good that the babies are with their mothers and maybe they will be a good influence on the mothers to help them become better people for the sake of their kids however I don’t think that they should be in that type of atmosphere. But the article was quiet interestin

Bad Seed

The Bad Seed is a play based on the novel written by William March in the early 1950’s. It’s about a little girl who is portrayed as the perfect daughter, student, and neighbor. She’s supposedly good at everything, with very good manners and never did anything wrong to receive a spanking. Nobody saw through her fake personality except her own mother, who could tell something was not right about her. In the story we find out that this eight year old girl with the perfect braids is actually a murderer or a psychopath. Not only does she end up killing a classmate just for an award that she felt she deserved, but killed a few other people also. In the end her mother finds out about her ways and finally thinks up a plan to kill her daughter for the sake of society and to kill herself because she felt that it was her fault her daughter turned out like that through heredity of her crazy criminal-minded grandmother.

I like this play the most out of the last few that we read because it’s very suspenseful because the whole time I was reading it, I couldn’t believe that someone at that age would commit so many murders without even getting caught. I’m kind of mad however, that she got away with it and the only person who knew her true colors, was her mother who killed herself. I don’t think her mother should have killed herself because even though it might be heredity that made her daughter the way she is, she can’t help her genetics. I think if anything, she should have focused more on Rhoda. I kind of had mixed feelings about when Christine tried to kill her. Even though I feel that murder is wrong, especially to your own daughter, there was really no other way to help her. If she was taken somewhere like an asylum, she may have hurt other people, especially because she looks like a sweet little girl, she may have talked the staff and into letting her get away from things. The ending was ironic though because she still ended up living and will stay with her father that is still clueless about her true behavior and in the end Monica tells him that he should be thankful that he still has her.

It’s scary to think that a person’s pure evil can pass down from generation to generation….this means that they can’t help their actions. Like Rhoda, she only does it to get what she wants. She sees it as the first resort, like its nothing to end an innocent life. It was kind of disturbing to read that she had killed that young innocent boy that had won the medal because he had earned it.  I really wonder if there are other little kids that do this in real life. If there is, I can’t imagine how they would handle that.

It was interesting to know about what they believed in the 50’s about nature vs. nurture and that they would do whatever it takes to stop a woman from having kids if she carries some type of illness from her genes. Somehow I don’t think that’s very fair, she can’t help where she had come from, and she like others should be able to have babies and start a family. I think this is a very controversial topic because it can either benefit society or benefit a person’s dream of having kids. Overall this story is very mind-blowing indeed.