with the sunrise. Your husband. Do you understand it?
[She only looks at him.] What say you? Will you contend
with him? [She is silent.] Are you stone? I tell you true,
woman, had I no other proof of your unnatural life, your dry
eyes would no be sufficient evidence that you delivered up
your soul to hell! A very ape would weep at such calamity!
Have the devil dried up any tear of pity within you?
[She is silent.] Take her out. It profit nothing she should
speak to him!
How miller wrote this speech depicts how men saw women in that time. It says to me that it is a woman’s duty to serve her husband. He wants to break her by threatening that she is forbidden to see her husband. This attitude towards women was not just apparent in Salem in 1642 but also in 1848. A group of women met in Seneca Falls in New York and one of the topics raised was a woman’s place in the family, ‘Their declaration of sentiments recognised that law rendered married women “civilly dead” (Stanton, Anthony and gage 1881, p70). Men have set up all rules of marriage and divorce “wholly regardless of the happiness of women…going upon a false supposition of supremacy of man and giving all power into his hands”’.
Miller had also chosen all male characters to be the conductors of the court. This goes back to my point that women are at less percentage of policy makers in America, ‘13 percent of U.S senators; 14 percent of U.S representatives; 14 percent of governors; 28 percent of state wide elective officers; 22 percent of state legislations and 21 percent of mayors.’
Sexuality in the play is also heightened. Miller raises Abigail’s age and lowers John Proctors and between them they have an affair, although there is no evidence that this really occurred in 1692. This maybe to dramatise to play, but it conveys Millers own interpretation of a woman. Sex is seen as a sin, the girls dance naked in the wood, and although it is a harmless activity in which they were doing. The setting of the play however suggests otherwise as it is a puritan community enjoyment of any nature is forbidden and they live only to serve God, ‘The main sin is sex, which has been notoriously equated with the Devil by way of original sin. The girls dance illicitly in the dark woods around a fire (another hellish symbol), some naked’.
Desire is a feeling that drives most people that gives them choices and decides their outcomes. A street car named desire has the same sexual tensions as the Crucible in many ways. Sex or your sexual habits or preferences can be seen as a sin ‘with its references to unspeakable aspects of sexuality. Indeed, one reviewer called it the product of an “almost desperately morbid turn of mind,”’ to me it is depicting
Blanche as being suppressed by a culture. Sex is a taboo subject and Blanche’s desire is suppressed by society.
Sexism in the play is an underlying theme which is evident as women are seen to be the weaker sex. The friction between male and female becomes most apparent then Stanley is interrogating Stella about the papers for Belle Reve, a property which belongs to her family, he says ‘In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa.’
A Streetcar Named Desire raises harsh issues that people do experience in society today, for example Blanche gets raped by her sisters husband, ‘in this climate we the loose structure and moral ambiguities of a streetcar named desire struck a chord of truth. Harold Clurman wrote in February 1948 that “its impact at this moment is especially strong, because it is virtually unique as a stage piece that is both personal and social and wholly a product of our life today”’. Rape is a subject that has always been around but maybe not as talked about as it should be,
Feminist theorists and political activists have brought attention
to three sexuality issues – rape, sexual harassment and woman battery.
For many, these symbolize the exploitation women have suffered in
male dominated societies. Only attacking and undermining the cultural
support for these practices will secure the personal autonomy
necessary for the pursuit of happiness. These problems raised by
sexual intimidation and more importantly, their solutions, remained in
the private sphere for centuries. In the 1960s and 1970s, the emerging
women’s movement brought them to the public agenda , both at the
federal level in every state.
So it was not until the 1960s that issue was raised politically in America, and it was only then that the laws changed so that this sort of behaviour became apparent in every state that it is unacceptable. A Streetcar named desire highlights what emotional power men can hold over women. Blanche is a lady tormented with heartache caused by a man and all of her actions since her heart was broken show the lack of respect for herself and not only was it the fact that her husband Allen had an afire but he then committed suicide and she probably carries around the guilt of that within her thoughts She says in scene 9:
After the death of Allen – intimacies with strangers was all
I seemed to fill my empty heart with…I think it was panic,
just panic that drove me from one to another, hunting for
some protection – here and there, in the most unlikely places –
even at least, in a seventeen year old boy, but –
somebody wrote the superintendent about it – “This woman is
morally unfit for her position!”
After reading the script I question why is it that women are often portrayed as desperate, and that they would do anything for a man or to feel loved? I think that this is how Williams wanted to portray women in this play, that a women’s life and choices are driven purely by men. Williams’ father left his sister, his mother and himself Williams opinion of women I believe would come from his own experiences and what maybe his mother had gone through.
I found that both plays are very similar in how women are portrayed and how they are suppressed in society. However as previously mentioned there are contradictions within both texts and what one person may see another maybe cannot. IN the Crucible Abigail is shown as the “marriage wrecker”, even a selfish young girl who likes to cause destruction in peoples lives and finds happiness in others misery. However, John Proctor is the adult in this situation and he was the one who was bound to another by marriage, could it be that he in fact seduced Abigail the young girl that she is into having an affair with him for his own sexual pleasure. Abigail has had a lot of heartache in her life as he had lost both parents and is now an orphan living with her uncle, parries. She must want to be loved by another and so when John Proctor took an interest she fell in love with him, ‘An orphan who has been dependant on her churlish uncle, Parris, Abigail sees in Proctor the first person who treated her as a woman rather than a childish nuisance. Her desire for he seems to transcend the physical, and she has magnified the importance he holds in her life beyond reasonable expectation.’ But on the other hand ‘Evidently still in love with proctor despite her dismissal (for which she blames his wife), Abigail cleverly uses the towns superstitious leanings to her own advantage’. The play suggests the seductive nature of women. I saw Abigail’s character as being riddled with desire for John Proctor and she would atop at nothing to have what she wanted. Abigail tries to seduce John Proctor in the barn her language is suggestive, ‘Abigail: A wild thing may say wild things’. However on the contrary it could have been that John initially had a desire for Abigail and led her on for his own desire, and she fell in love. But Miller chose to portray Abigail as the seductress this too does not show a good impression of a woman.
This is also the same in a streetcar Named desire. At the beginning Blanche is portrayed as naive and fragile, you can tell that a part of her has died because of the stresses of her past experiences. She then gets violated by her sisters’ husband and is weakened again in character. However, what we come to realise is that Blanche isn’t as delicate and as pure as we think when it is revealed that she was in fact a prostitute and loses her job at a school for having sexual relations with a seventeen year old pupil. A lot of readers would see Blanche as the main character, the one who’s story it is about but when Stanley rapes their roles reverse as he becomes the one in control,
Karzan’s articulation of Blanche’s through-line of action shows
that, like most readers of the play, he considered her to be the
protagonist. The protagonist is traditionally the character who
faces obstacles in pursuit of a goal, one who makes things
happen while holding the interest and sympathy of the reader or
audience member and one who’s crucial choice (crisis)
determines the outcome of the action……The climax to A Streetcar
Named desire is undoubtedly Stanley’s rape of blanche, which
occurs at the end of scene10. Thus some critics pinpoint Stanley’s
decision to violate his antagonist as the plays crisis, and this
would identify Stanley as the plays protagonist…..Stanley Kowalski
not only had the audience rooting for his victory over blanche’
I have explored the two plays along with women’s rights in America and I have answered the question that America is a misogynist society. The way that miller writes the crucible and how the women are portrayed in that creates seeds in my mind as to what society was like in the 1950s when the play was written and how indifferent America is today, A Street Car Named Desire, although set in a different era was written at the same time and for me it although it may just be for theatrical purposes and to create a story which can be interesting for the viewer it still stays along the theme that women are of less importance to men by the fact that blanche is now a desperate women who was looking for love because of the hurt a man had caused to her. In the same instance Abigail in the Crucible her act of raising the communities superstition of devilish activities shows her desperation and she conjures the whole community into getting sucked in to this idea of witches and devil worshipping all because John Proctor did not love her back. Over the years there have been laws in America which meant that women had less priorities than men in which I studied in McBride Stetsons book. I have come to a final decision that America was a misogynist society but as it stands today I feel women are more or less equal with men. However what makes America a misogynist society is a mans depiction of a woman, and if the only two people I could look at were Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams then I would set my answer of yes America is a misogynist society in Stone.
Bibliography
The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams, Felicity Hardison Londre, Cambridge University Press, 1997
The Ceucible, Arthur Miller, Penguin 1968
Student Companion to Arthur Miller, Susan Abbotson, Greenwood Press, 2000
A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams, Heinman, 1995
McBride Stetson, Dorothy. Women’s rights in the U.S.A: policy debates and gender roles p61
miller Arthur, The crucible, Penguin, 1968, p11
Miller Arthur, The Crucible, Penguin 1968, p116
Stetson Mcbride Dorothy, Women’s rights in the U.S.A: policy debates and gender roles Routledge 2004 p183
Stetson McBride Dorothy, Women’s rights in the U.S.A: policy debates and gender roles Routeledge, 2004, p61
Abbotson Susan, Student Companion to Arthur Miller,Greenwood Press, 2000, p133
Williams Tennessee, A Streetcar Named Desire, Heinman 1995, p21
Londre Hardison Felicity, The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams, Cambridge University Press 1997, p48
Stetson McBride Dorothy, Women’s rights in the U.S.A: policy debates and gender roles Routeledge, 2004, p343
Williams Tennesee, A Streetcar Named Desire, Heinman 1995, p100
Abbotson Susan, Student Companion to Arthur Miller,Greenwood Press, 2000, p128
Abbotson Susan, Student Companion to Arthur Miller,Greenwood Press, 2000, p129
Miller Arthur, The Crucible, Penguin 1953, p29
Londre Hardison Felicity, The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams, Cambridge University Press 1997, p50