StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
βœ•
Go to advanced search...
Nobody downloaded yet

Gender and Sexuality in In the Heart of America - Essay Example

Summary
The paper "Gender and Sexuality in In the Heart of America" discusses that generally, the play is about personal lives and interactions. The people have bodies that are either those of males or females of particular types, Arab, American, or Vietnamese…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.6% of users find it useful

Extract of sample "Gender and Sexuality in In the Heart of America"

Download file to see previous pages

The action often takes place during a war of attrition, and moves back and forth in place and time, being set between two different eras: the Vietnam war in 1969, and the first Gulf War of 1990 and its immediate aftermath.

Wallace is interested in the way language can be used to inspire people, but also in how racist language and actions can serve to dehumanize those seen as enemies. She was interested in the 'American way of war’ and how language is used to inspire and underline aggression, and how the language of war becomes enticing and erotic (DeAltey). The American idea about the war was the destruction of the enemy, rather than arriving or even trying to arrive, at any other possible solution (Echevarria 1).

His idea is one that Wallace would agree with, as she is quoted by DeAtley as having said: “war is, on one level, a simple question of how to best tear as many bodies apart in as little time as possible, and necessarily not about freedom and liberation.” Wallace had become very angry about what had occurred in Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991. After two years of research, she published her play In the heart of America, a play which explores ideas about identity, and in which each character is trying to establish their identity, each one trying to make meaning of the world in which they find themselves and their place within it, self-actualization as Engler said (330).

The theme of the play is not about how horrific war can be or even what makes it an American, although these topics are covered. At the heart of this work is human’s struggle for identity, who are we really?’The play opens with a young Palestinian-American woman, Fairouz from Atlanta. She is questioning an American soldier about the whereabouts of her brother, Remzi. He seems unable to give her a proper answer. The war is over and perhaps he wants to make a fresh start, to forget the people involved once they were out of the war zone (84).

Remzi is doubtlessly dead, so his identity is no longer important to Craver at least, but the play then moves on to show how each of these five characters is searching for just that, who they are. It is at this point, early in the play, but chronologically the last part depicted, and once he knows how likely it is that Remzi is dead, that Craver is finally able to admit that he had fallen in love, yet seconds later Fairouz asks him: “Did you love my brother?” But he claims that he cannot remember (111).

When the dead Remzi appears to him he is scared: “We could go to jail. It’s illegal in the army” For the moment at least, that seems more important than their relationship, which after all had no future as Remzi is dead and gone, even if his ghost is standing there in front of him, talking to him, asking for a kiss.

...Download file to see next pages Read More

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Gender and Sexuality in In the Heart of America

Normative Sexuality in Children

Normative sexuality refers to the normal sexual orientation whereby sexual and marital associations are mostly (or only) recognized when it occurs between a man and a woman.... ... ... ... Normative sexual behavior has been depicted in children as young as 2 years of age.... The results of such behaviors have remained challenging to clinicians as differentiating them with those caused by sexual abuse....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Sexual Differences Affect the Orientation of Gender Terribly

The paper "Sexual Differences Affect the Orientation of gender Terribly" states that the data acquired from a sample of around 40,000 households in every state.... The differences in gender behavior affect criminology, the strength and the ability that women have has been underestimated in the study of criminology.... A gender study is a study that is made to focus on the two genders and how they relate to each other.... There are several types of research that have been conducted in the past to ascertain gender differences....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Connecting the dots: The Non-Western literary tradition

Name: Course: Instructor: Date: Comparison of sexuality in Native American and Chinese Islamic cultures Introduction The creation of human beings, animals, and most plants is in such a way that they need the opposite sex to reproduce and create future generations.... Furthermore, males are more superior to their female counterparts and sexuality is in their favor regardless of religious or human rights activists' views (see Knight).... The vast geographical distance between Asia and america means that there are some differences between the genes of the Chinese and Native American people....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Three waves of Feminism

Despite the many laws that were passed since the start of the feminist movement, there continue to be places throughout america that are unbalanced in how women are treated.... In the 1960s, these headstrong women struck again during the second-wave of feminist activity, also known as the Women's Liberation Movement, this time aiming for a wide range of changes, including sexuality and social equalities, especially in regard to the workplace.... sexuality was based on standards that had been...
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper

Answer the questions according to reading

Lindsey Feitz and Joane Nagel understand the connections among race, gender, and sexuality in β€œThe Militarization of gender and sexuality in the Iraq War.... Powerful institutions create specific gender and race identities and images of sexualities by designing and implementing oppressive gendered and sexualized beliefs, attitudes, policies, and practices.... Furthermore, what is clear in the sexual industries is the gender and ethnic differences between the dominant racial man and the oppressed sexualized woman, thereby intersecting gender and race issues....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Gender, sexuality and families on Mars

sexuality in America is diverse and in the past few generations, it has become very open.... The america institutional structures reflect masculine communication methods (Rosssides 241-242).... Similar to the historical eras, marriage remains to be a famous lifestyle for considerable portion of the population in america.... There is a significant decrease in the size of a household in america.... Families in america: A Reference Handbook....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Policing Gender, Race, and Social Class: The Economics, Politics, and Social Dynamics of Marginalized Identities

The paper focuses on the policing of gender, race, and social class as a mechanism for protecting the economic and social dynamics that oppress disempowered identities.... The act of policing has become a political mechanism for controlling non-traditional gender identities and sexual practices.... Amar complained, however, that when the police attacked a foreign female correspondent, the Western media forgot to analyze and report on how complex gender issues and politics are in Egypt (301)....
4 Pages (1000 words) Term Paper

The Significance of Gender and Sexuality for the Major World Religions

2001, Holy Confrontation: Religion, Gender, and sexuality in the Philippines, 1521-1685 is a good resource not only for religion in the Philippines but for religion, gender, and sexuality studies in general.... 2005, Sex and the Early Church is an article that explains the role of sex and sexuality in the formation of the early church.... "The Significance of gender and sexuality for the Major World Religions" paper discusses the roles and meanings of gender and sexuality as regards religion in general and Christianity in particular and how religion, in turn, has affected mankind's views on sexuality and gender....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
βœ•
Contact Us