Thematic structure in narrative and literature

Subjective truth forms our perception of reality when regarding people, cultures, religion, or any other differentiating factor, and this is true of the male gender-perception of women. Plausibility structures, which govern our perspective and control how we perceive the Other, are part and parcel of every culture, gender, religion, and community. In fact, they are directly responsible for our ability to believe the seemingly unbelievable about others. For example, for a very long time, members of hate groups (which they would call patriotic organizations) have created a culture in which its members are convinced of the reality that all people who are not white are so different from them as to be rendered unimportant. Men have, for millennia, subjected women to a 'reality' that tells them they are inferior of mind and body, are unable to engage in the kinds of activities that men can, and that their contributions to the world can only be in motherhood and as a wife. This, of course, is a subjective truth turned reality for the males of the culture. Only relatively recently have women had enough of a voice to be able to start changing that subjective reality to demonstrate that such is not the case. For the purpose of this discussion, we will examine the works of two dramatists: Susan Glaspell's Trifles, and David Hwang's M. Butterfly. Trifles uses the voices of men in a Greek-chorus-like manner, acting as the conscience or the voice reflected by the plausibility structures of the community, to reinforce Minnie's guilt, the triviality of hers and women's occupations, interests, and preoccupations. M. Butterfly, also depicts the kind of influence that the archetypal structures of community perception (i.e. gender perception of women through men) has over a woman's life. Both of these plays will be discussed further in this vein.

Susan Glaspell's Trifles, employs, very effectively, the progressive narrative stages by marking them with the intermittent but regular appearances, comments, and exits by the male characters. Each of these appearances is also clearly marked by the impact and purpose of the men. Minnie Foster, who is absent, and all the other women in the play, are controlled and guided not by their own feminine conscious, but by the collective, archetypal, conscience represented by the men. It is the men of the community that have created the false-reality that has turned the lives of women in the community (and even, disbelievingly so, to themselves) into nothing more than trifles.

One of the better descriptions of a woman by a man in this work that really highlights the power of words and plausibility structures to be trivialized is found in Mr. Hale's opening account of what he had found, earlier, at the Wright Farm. He describes Mrs. Peters as, "A slight wiry woman...a thin nervous face," while Mrs. Hale, his wife, is described as being, "comfortable looking." When the two women are standing side by side, however, one can hardly notice any differences until they begin speaking. This underscores a very strong element in the polarity between women and men in this play - men are a powerful group as well as powerful individuals, women are simply members of a flock being shepherded by the men.

While the opening scene in Mrs. Hale's kitchen demonstrates the male perspective of oneness of women, it is in the jail, and later, that we begin to see the individuality of women, but only when we are seeing them without the male filter being directly applied. This is a demarcation of sub-culture differences within a broader culture. It is during the creation of the Jury, of the interactions around the jail by the women that the descriptions of women themselves lose all external adjectives. Among women, Glaspell is saying, the thing that makes up a woman's individuality is her voice, her hobbies, her participation in feminine politics around county fairs and their husbands and children, but not necessarily their physical aspect. While throughout the story there is a well-defined tension between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, and while it is Mrs. Hale who seems to be the strongest, most outspoken, and thus hardiest of the women, it is Mrs. Peters who ultimately 'wins' - because it is she who, through total aquiescence to the male-expectation, ascends to her public role. It is by conforming to the community's expectation structures that the people of Trifles, are able to remain a community - for better or for worse. It is the expectations placed upon them that forms the culture in which they live.

David Hwang's, M. Butterfly, provides a start-to-finish indictment of the manner by which men, who have been guided and controlled by their plausibility structures and their archetypes of behavior, behave towards women. Gallimard demonstrates a very deeply disturbed psychology in regards to his expectations of and relations with women. For example, whenever he visits Renee, the object of his affair, he is more excited about inflicting an indirect suffering upon Song than he is with anything he does with Renee. In these interactions with Renee, Gallimard imagines Song sobbing, alone, comfortless, and says, quite horribly, "It was her tears and her silence that excited me, every time I visited Renee." Hwang's character is the embodiment of the worst of male-female inherited behavioral and cultural patterns - that women are simply the playthings and property of men, to be done with as they wish. Again, Gaillimard commenting on his affair with Renee, "I felt for the first time that rush of power -- the absolute power of a man."