One of the certain themes presented in Maria is it
emphasizes of the human mind free from the societal expectations. The story presents
a scenario, which may not be so different from our own, which people live by an
unwritten code of how people should behave, in this case the women. The societal
expectations presented in the story effect how the people interact with each
other and what they think is appropriate. With the inability for women to
progress among society and expected to behave a certain way gave more of an oppressive
or even a slave mentality. Therefore, when the main character is inside the asylum
all of the rules of society no longer apply of how the deemed insane interact
with each other. Already deemed unfit to live among the people, the characters
reveal the truth about the world they live, in which the audience begins to understand
the environments power to gives to the characters a sense of freedom. In conclusion
the truth revealed by the characters enables not only the audience to sympathize
with the main character, but opens to the truth of what is really happening in
the world they live in. In other words, the truth was revealed in literature,
not so much in pamphlets or a newspaper.
While reading this book I've been reminded of how woman were treated in older cultures of where woman weren't viewed in the same vein as men and developed a actual culture different from the men, such as woman in ancient China having an actual written language that only they could understand where they could write out their thoughts without threat of persecution and the harem woman of the Middle East developing a entire political society among themselves based on how they trained there sons for leadership and the running of their household. I think that woman when under a patriarchal society develop ways to express themselves and if those thoughts are thought of as "insane" then at-least the woman has "won" by getting the men to at-least think about her side, so Maria's insanity could be considered a sort of victory for her because she's drawn attention to the plight her and other woman like her are in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that "Maria" is most definitely a commentary on society in regards to woman in society. Sympathy is very important in achieving equality. To be able to sympathize with the main character or to empathize their actions is to effectively see their likeness(likeness as both similarity and affective which I assume to be closely related). The asylum may be a limited device in some ways but in others aforementioned, it is simultaneously liberating from the snares of social norms.
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