Male and Female Friendship - Coursework Example

Male and Female friendship – A Comparative Study That friendship is the foundation of human social living is unquestionable. But it should be asserted that we have next to no understanding of how friends are found or maintained; for camaraderie comes naturally to children and age only sharpens these skills further, never requiring us to probe into the dynamics of relational psychology. Adult relationships require substantial maintenance so that the social circle of an adult human being is much more contracted than that of a child. Many parameters that dictate how we form friends – similar interests, cultural backgrounds, intellectual inheritance, joint existence or even a common dislike – can all precipitate into strong bonds of friendship. Another significant variable affecting friend formation is gender. The friend circle of a typical male and a typical female (leaving aside for a minute the question of how ‘typical’ is to defined), is remarkably different. Men find it more difficult to form new friends while women are at ease in any social gathering. Emotional intensity is considered a characteristic of only the female gender while persistence of bond is a more masculine attribute. Of course, these are stereotypical views that allow substantial variation in details. There are emotionally strong male friendships just as there are professional female friends. In this work, we study the manifestation of friendship as expressed in three stories chosen from two different cultures. The first two are “Lend me your Light” and “One Sunday” from Rohinton Mistry’s short story collection “Tales from Firozsha Baag”. The third story deals exclusively with female friendship – the famous play “The Rez Sisters” is based on the Indian community in America by Tomson Highway. Both feature dense literature. Friendship as such is not the main allusion in Mistry’s stories as it is in The Rez Sisters. However both are deeply insightful and caricature complex emotional relations in simple equations. Male – Male Friendship The Tales from Feroza Baag is more exactly a nostalgic recollection of the author’s upbringing in Mumbai’s Parsi (Zoroastrian) neighborhood after he immigrated to Canada. Having been exposed to his host nation’s higher standard of living and relative social enlightenment, he reviews his own nation’s social hierarchy and mentality with mixed emotions. On one hand he longs for his home, family and friends – in an attempt to replicate which he forges a niche for himself among Ontario’s Parsi community. But on the other hand, he is distressed by the sheer scale of human destitution and ignorance in India, which he cannot comprehend, tolerate or attempt to solve. He respects his brother Percy who has chosen to stay behind in India to work with rural farmers through various social welfare projects; but he regrets not having been closer to him – interestingly, he does not seem to place the blame on anyone in particular. The friend circle of the author (Kersi), his brother (Percy) as well as that of all the other prominent male characters in the stories Lend me your Light as well as One Sunday are prima facie small and limited to their immediate family members and a few school mates. More revealingly, in the first story, Lend me your Light, Percy seems to have only Jamshed as a friend while no particular friend figures have been mentioned for Kersi. Though there are numerous allusions to the boys engaging in group activities such as recreative sports, only two people seem to have been important enough to deserve mention. This is a characteristic male friendship pattern – no matter how many people are part of their social circle, only few qualify to be close friends. Another feature to be observed is that Percy and Jamshed spend their time engaged in some activity or the other. They would either play cricket or built airplanes from the activity kit supplied by Jamshed’s rich relatives. Male friendships are largely based on such ‘activity partnerships’. Unlike female groups that engage in more emotional exchanges and idle chit chat, men tend to be engaged throughout, requiring physical exertion and mental challenge. To demonstrate this point further, Kersi and Francis became friends while learning to fly kites, spinning tops and shooting marbles. Jamshed and his friend Navjeet were partners in the social work that was being carried out in the Marathi village. It is not possible to find an instance in the text when the characters can be found engaged in simple heart to heart conversations. Work provides the necessary adhesive required to sustain the relationship and when there is no longer a common activity, the friendship also comes under strain. Jamshed and Percy diverged immediately after they left school as they no longer had a common field of activity. The differences in their social outlooks – which always existed but came to matter only now – ultimately separated them into two irreconcilable entities. Another point to notice is that friendships that extend over different age groups and social classes are more acceptable for men than for women. Jamshed was far richer than Percy or Kersi while Kersi and Francis had no comparison. In The Rez Sisters, none of the women consider Gazelle Nataway a suitable companion and ridicules Emily Dictionary who conversed with her. The brutality of criticism is significant a feature of female relations. Female – Female friendship The Rez Sisters exclusively deals with feminine friendship. It should be kept in mind however that the characters in the play are much less refined and educated than those of Rohinton Mistry. The language that they use is foul and impolite, sexual intercourse is constantly referred to in a derogatory manner and abusive slang is dispersed throughout the dialogues. Conversely, the relationship between the seven women (six, excluding the mentally disabled Zhaboonigan Peterson) are extremely intense and volatile. Emotional outbursts are frequent and there is less containment of one’s actual thoughts and actions; i.e., impulsive behavior is the predominant mode of expression. This is not to say that the women are unruly or uncivilized; they are blood relatives and at a fundamental level, they care for each other. The sheer number of characters, their uniqueness, the intensity of emotions that has been splendidly captured by Tomson Highway and the unfamiliar social dynamism of the Indian Society make the analysis of the story difficult. What strikes the reader most during a preliminary study of the text is the intensity with which the characters address each other. Very little seems to be suppressed, allowing a free flow of emotions. This is in sharp contrast to Kersi, Percy and Jamshed who were reluctant to open their hearts to each other. One reason why Jamshed and Percy so deviated was their complete lack of understanding of each other’s philosophy. Women attach a lot of emotion to their friendship. The Rez sisters regularly discuss their family matters, their desires, their husbands, their children’s boyfriends and their fears. This is highly evident in the conversation between Philomena and Pelajia as well in the traingualr conversations of Annie Cook, Veronique and Marie – Adele. As has been mentioned before, women are brutal in their criticism of each other. This is vividly illustrated in the brawl at the store where the conversation between Veronique and Emily escalate from being a simple argument to a fierce fight involving all seven of them. The way the argument is conducted throws a lot of light on the nature of their relationship. The accusations are strictly out of context and are designed to hurt the opponent’s personal ego than to logically establish the correct view point. Dialogues increasingly mirror pent up emotions within the person and references such as “you are bossy” or “you have no morals whatsoever” begin to make their appearance. Men are more conservative in their emotional outburst though they are not rare. Often fights between men do not reach the viciousness of Rez sisters as they transform into physical violence much before that. More illuminating is the way the fight in the store concluded – with passionate speeches by Emily and Marie Adele, causing everyone to cry and repent their actions. Emily confides some of the darkest secrets of her life while the others look on. Even though the seven women join together to attend THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD, common activities are not essential for women to sustain their friendship. The play opens with an idle conversation between Pelajia and Philomena and then moves over to a longer conversation between Marie Adele and Veronique. Women can sit and gossip without any particular purpose or direction. Men by the very nature are opposed to idle behavior preferring to be constantly engaged in some physical activity or the other. It is no surprise therefore that women are constantly criticized for being lazy and “gossipy” is not a welcome adjective for anyone. At the same time, men require years to develop the trust and confidence in each other that women build in a matter of hours. Conclusion Thus we have seen that major differences exist in the gender patterns of Friendship formation. Male friendships tend to be limited, based on some activities such as a sport or drinking and largely ignore social conventions. Women are more emotional, attach great sentiment to their relations and are freer with their partners. They also have a larger friend circle. Despite these differences, similarities do exist in choosing a friend. Pelajia and Philomena were both older than the other women; a substantial age difference also existed between Kersi and Francis. Yet this did not stop them from being friends. Granted that none of them were very close friends, yet a ‘mentor relationship’ can exist between two people separated by their ages. Such amiability was also seen between Marie-Adele and Zhaboonigan initially and later between her and Emily Dictionary (towards the end of the story). It has to be agreed that these stories do not contain particularly role model friends, yet by portraying relations with inherent weaknesses, the authors have tried to show how friendship ought to be, rather than how it is. References Highway, Tomson. "The Rez Sisters." Gwynn, R S and Wanda Campbell. Drama: A Pocket Anthology. Ontario: Pearson Education, 1951. 409 - 468. Mistry, Rohinton. "Lend me your Light." Mistry, Rohinton. Tales from Firoza Baag. 173 - 193: McClelland and Stewart, 1997. Mistry, Rohinton. "One Sunday." Mistry, Rohinton. Tales from Firoza Baag. McClelland and Stewart, 1997. 30 - 45. Read More