Philosophy - Article oppression by Irish Young - response

Philosophy - oppression by Irish Young - response - Article Example Exploitation generally depicts the conflicts between and haves and have-nots. It is a major trade union issue of all times, as most of the workers’ unions think that the management is their permanent enemy and the workers need to be in war with it always. In the extreme form of unionism, productivity is lost sight of, resulting in grievous loss to the economy. The working class also suffers in the long run. Marginalization is about those sections that are unable to bear with the stiff competition in the labor market due to variety of factors like loss of employment due to recession, disabilities, racial discrimination, etc. Powerlessness is about the plight of the workers, especially those who are unskilled and are unable to tap the alternative sources of employment due to lack of educational qualifications. Such classes of workers have neither autonomy nor authority and have less chances of improving their job prospectus. They have to carry on with the available facilities. Cultural Dominance refers to the dominance of one group over the other that goes in tandem with cultural expressions and interpretations on the basis of history. Iris Marion Young argues about such attitudes in her book â€Å"Justice and the Politics of Difference, â€Å"The Hebrews are oppressed in Egypt, and many users of the term oppression in West invoke this paradigm.†(41) Violence dominates over a big canvas of societal life. State sanctioned violence, racial segregation, harassment to women in workplace, are some of the prominent examples of oppression in these areas. In this materialistic world impacted by industrial and internet revolutions, Iris Young has correctly assessed the aspects related to various types of oppressions and the anguish they cause in the day to day life of the people in the concerned segments as stated above. Attitudinal differentiation on the basis of sex is the hallmark of societal interactions. In

Quest For Vengeance And Distorted Personalities Essay

Quest For Vengeance And Distorted Personalities - Essay Example This essay examines the adverse effects vengeance has had on the central figure of Paulina in Death And The Maiden, and Claire Zachanassian in The Visit. Death And The Maiden, combining effortlessly elements of suspense, mystery and morality, intertwines them with highly interesting insights into the psychological recesses of a victim, forced to live with the open wounds of her persecution. The play, taking place in an unnamed country, is set in the times when the country has just escaped from a brutal fascist regime. Paulina lives with her husband Gerardo, who was once an activist working against the dictatorship and is now a member of a committee assigned to investigate human-rights violations. A few years back, Paulina was kidnapped and brutally raped and tortured while blindfolded, by a sadistic doctor who played Franz Schubert's quartet "Death And The Maiden." She believes that the stranger that her husband has now brought into their home is the doctor responsible for her traumatic experience. She imprisons the doctor, extracts a forced confession from him and yet, instead of killing him, lets him go in the end. The play provides the reader with ample chances to look inside the tortured soul of Paulina and understand the extent to which her personality has been distorted by her past experiences. Paulina insists fiercely that the prisoner be put on trial and adamantly refuses to hear the moderate voice of her husband, showing that she has lost all rationality and reason and is blinded by a terrible rage. By depicting this, Dorfman has shown how thirst for revenge remains dormant, hiding beneath the layers of a victim's, in this case Paulina's, personality creating an illusion of normalcy, lulling the victim's loved ones into a false sense of complacency. However, when Paulina is shown to be reliving a traumatic experience from her past, her hatred resurfaces again with such violence that it shocks. When Paulina binds the doctor to a chair, she gags him using her panties. This action of hers is highly insightful as it shows that the doctor's total degradation is her main aim and nothing else, and only the most humiliating treatment meted out to her prisoner will satisfy her. She does this because unconsciously she desires the doctor to go through the same mental and emotional torment that she went through. Seeing him helpless, physically bound and gagged, writhing in agony and even unable to feed himself, gives her a deep, perverse satisfaction. Keeping her secret activities against the fascist regime of her country and her courage during her captivity in view, we can safely to assume that Paulina is a decent human being with a high moral sense and belief in lofty ideals such as freedom and justice, but when it comes to Dr. Roberto Miranda, she remorselessly throws all those ideals to the wind and becomes a tigress, thirsty for blood. Dorfman effectively highlights the inner turmoil of Paulina's soul by juxtaposing her tormented psyche with physical proof of how much she suffers. The reader can actually feel her nerves taut with tension due to her clipped dialogues and her equally explosive diatribes. The following tirade of hers, serves as a clear indication of her suffering under a spell of hatred, as she says, "And why