Marital Feminine Social Issues in Dramatic Works - Essay Example

Ishmael Reed underlines a unique way of depicting feminine social issues whereby the feminine gender is the one who empowers the man while being undermined by the men in their lives. This study is looking to prove that men did create the majority of the marital problems experienced by their feminine counterparts as a result of taking them and their values for granted.

The norm of a woman in society was that her job was to be a wife, mother, proper housekeeper, and supportive of her husband. She was to abide by his decisions and always follow his lead. However, in the 1950s, society was greatly awakened to women seeking careers equivalent to those that men could do and thus changed the social perspective of a woman's role in society. In the play written by Reed; The C Above C Above High C, the two main women who are undermined are Maime Eisenhower and Lil Armstrong. Both of them have undergone the rejection severed by their husbands’ choices of divorce and illicit affairs that devalue their marital status, as well as their value in their husbands’ lives.

Lil Armstrong is a highly educated woman with a career in the jazz music industry, and she came from a home that was comfortable and wealthy enough to afford her a good life. Even though her career was pursued against her mother’s wishes, she did meet Louis Armstrong, who had barely scrapped the dust of his jazz music talent. Lil used her gifted and well-developed skills to help channel his innate gift and use it to become the famous jazz musician he became later on in his career. Louis came from a very dysfunctional background as expressed by Lil in her conversation with Maime Eisenhower at the Shoreham hotel.

The part where Lil is undermined in her marriage is when Louis takes off to pursue his career without a second glimpse of how the divorce between him and Lil did affect her. Even though they were never on the same path career-wise it would have been more sufficient for him to keep Lil in his life as his companion versus marrying a replica of his mother and ending up miserable.

Maime Eisenhower also traveled the same road of dusting off her husband’s illiteracy and poorly mannered system of living. She made significant sacrifices only to receive a great note of betrayal from him having an illicit affair with another lady, Kay Summerby (Reed, 58). Even though she is seen to be green with envy towards Kay and even has a greater resentment towards Eisenhower over the affair; she is also undergoing a feminine social issue of being undermined by her husband.

Unlike the modern times where women are highly recognized for being the strength that builds their husband's success and still managed to hold together their family unit, neither Lil nor Maime received an ounce of gratitude. Instead, the wives were shoved off as unimportant and even in Miami’s case, she seemed to be a nuisance to her husband. He barely gave her any attention, and he was not regretful of his betrayal by having an illicit affair that broke their marital vows. This was a world where the male gender could easily get away with hurting their wives with illicit affairs or divorce as seen in both cases. The women had very little say in these events and had to endure the servitude of the ungrateful men in their lives.