Fefu And Her Friends Sparknotes

Maria Irene Fornes is a Cuban playwright who was known for her unique style and avant garde style to theater. Moreover, she addressed issues related to gender, sexuality, and identity. Fornes was recognized for using non-linear storylines minimal staging, and lyrical language. With that being said, her breakthrough play Fefu and her Friends is proof of all of the things stated above. In the play, eight women wrestle with their internal struggles and cultural expectations as the drama tackles a number of issues. Given the circumstances, Fornes made many bold decisions in this text. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Fornes was impacted and what the play indicated about the society she was a part of.

One of the topics I wanted to discuss

The connections between the characters are intricate. The individuals struggle to identify who they are in a society that doesn't always recognize their worth. In the play it reads, “...We’ll see. I still like men better than women. I envy them. I like being like a man. Thinking like a man. They are well together. Women are not,” (Fefu and Her Friends). In other words, Fefu tells Christina she values men more than women which reveals her misogyny and how the world has infected her mind. She certainly perceives women differently now, thanks to the patriarchy. I believe that in some ways, it is a fair response since women were coping with a society that favors males. Naturally, it will make you wonder and desire the person who benefits from those things. No one wants to be associated with inferiority, therefore Fefu works hard to be strong and independent. While this may be true, it also opens a door to how women can assist in harming each other in the face of oppression. In a research article about female self-directed oppression Asmaa Mohamed writes, “By female internalized oppression, the researcher means another source of female oppression is other women. Women receive oppression and violence with a negative reaction and when they are going to defend their self-hood, the act becomes harsher on their

She wrote the play through various points and locations in her life. This made her writing truthful. Fornes stated, “If my pen is honest, I will sometimes frequently portray characters who, like me, are women. If my expression is honest, it is inevitable that it will often speak in a feminine way. If I think of it, it seems natural that I would write with a woman’s perspective, but I am not aware that I am doing any such thing. I don’t sit down to write to make a point about women if the central character of my play is a woman,” (Fornes). She underlines that this is a natural outcome rather than a choice she made. Her work will continue to represent her viewpoint as a woman if it is genuinely honest and truthful to her own experiences and feelings. It also implies that she does not necessarily write with the goal of making a statement about women, preferring to let the characters and plot grow naturally. Due to her experiences, she is able to write and these things will reveal themselves in the play about society as long as she remains truthful. The audience can recognize and relate whenever an artist just tells the truth and it is prevalent in Fornes’s