Spring awakening - Essay Example

Spring Awakening Spring awakening is a play written by Frank Wedekind who was a German playwright who is considered a forerunner of expressionism. In his play, he showed lifelong aggression towards the moral code of the society especially the hypocrisy of the society’s attitude towards sexuality. The play faced recurrent suppression for a long time because of the Frank representation of adolescent sexuality, homoeroticism on the stage that was as a result of suppression and societal pretense.

The Spring Awakening was presumed as a pornography play by many people in the society. This writing compares modern America and the issues faced by the teenagers in Spring Awakening.In Spring awakening the parents and the society at large are not ready to inform their children about the sexual exploration. Parents consider it unethical to discuss issues of sexual relationship with their children. This is really unfortunate since most of the children in the play are starting to experience changes in their bodies.

No one is out there to explain to them about these changes. Even the very parents with the responsibility of caring are not giving their children any explanation to the biological changes they experience.The big issue of the play was the challenges the teenagers had due to the societal suppression and fear of discussing sexuality and reproduction. For instance, Wendla who is a teenage school girl is in a big trouble because her mother Bergmann is not comfortable with her daughter’s quick growth.

Wendla’s mother is not ready to discuss with Wendla the facts about reproduction and sexuality despite her daughter’s growing curiosity. Martha is also emotionally disturbed by her parents’ continual physical abuse. It is surprising to note that 17-year old Lammermeier does not even have sexual thoughts and even the expulsion of Melchior from school simply because he has knowledge about sex and he is able to express himself in writing. Failure by the society and the parents to discuss sexuality and reproduction in the play makes Wendla conceive Melchior’s child unknowingly and finally dies after unsafe abortion.

It is quite sarcastic to find that the same parents who do not want to talk about sex decide to send Melchior to a reformatory because they discover that he got Wendla pregnant. I feel that modern America has actually changed especially the perception of the topic of sexuality and reproduction. By the time I was an adolescent, I had known a lot about this topic. I got the knowledge from the school, media and very many sources such as the internet. Thanks to my parents who openly discussed sexuality and production freely.

In fact, I was made to understand that information is such an important thing to have. Treatment of teenagers who engaged in sexual intercourse by their parents was not as the one portrayed in the play. Although the modern parents may not be pleased with the act, they may take very calculative action such as safe abortion in case of pregnancy. It is however interesting to note that the modern teenagers engage in sexual intercourse and reproduction issues due to the sufficient information they posses unlike in the play where the adolescents engaged in sex without any knowledge.

The modern America do not really relate with the characters in the Spring Awakening because of denial of crucial information due to suppression and society’s pretense in the play.