One main
theme that I discovered from this play is gender oppression. Well-stated by the
title of the play, The Contrast portrayed
the different and opposite roles of men and women in America at that time. Men
were seen to be aggressive and free; while women were to do whatever they could
to please men. Although America was battling hard to gain independence from
Britain, the society especially the women were yet to be truly free. Take the
dialogue of Letitia and Charlotte in the beginning of the play for example [pg.
9]:
CHARLOTTE. Why, my dear little prude, are we
not all such libertines? Do you think, when I sat tortured two hours under the
hands of my friseur, and an hour more at my toilet, that I had any thoughts of
my aunt Susan or my Cousin Betsey? though they are both allowed to be critical
judges of dress.
LETITIA. Why, who should we dress to please?
CHARLOTTE. Why, a creature who does not know
Bouffon from Souffle—Man! ... ...
When it
seemed that they claimed to be libertines,
they were not actually free. As we can see from the dialogue, Charlotte was
willing to ‘torture’ herself just to please men. She bought a hat from Mrs.
Catgut just because the seller said the hat is the most fashionable. She did
not seem to have a mind of her own, but to conform to the requirements of the
society blindly. Their life purpose was to please each and everyone around them
other than themselves. They were degraded and oppressed by the society.
In the case
of Maria, she had a desire of her own. She had her own goals, aims, and
principles. But she was oppressed by her family – her father. She had no say of
her own marriage. She was forced to accept her marriage with Dimple. This oppression shows the inability of women to have their
desires fulfilled, or even to have a desire of their own. They were programmed,
controlled, and molded to follow the norm of the society – the masculine-based
society.
The play
ended with marriage proposal between Maria and Manly; and Letitia revealed
Dimple’s amoral act which caused Dimple to leave dishonored. So, the ending
seemed to suggest that there were hopes for a change in women’s status. Women
could truly be free and equal to obtain their desires. And the history of
America proves it all.
You could look towards Van Rough's first scene with his daughter, Maria, to further expand on this idea of oppression. Maria, at one point, even said, "You terrify me, Sir. Indeed, Sir, I am all submission." It was heavily hinted that this play was set around the end of the Revolutionary War -- a time when Abigail Adams (John Adam's wife) pleaded for her husband to keep women in mind while writing the Constitution (and we all know how that worked out).
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to look at is the role men were expected to play in their society, as highlighted by the interactions between Jessamy and Jonathan. Everyone was basically confined to their own gender expectation box (though granted, the women's little prison was basically buried six feet underground at that point).
I liked your analysis!