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Article

Open Access

Getting Out: A Struggle for Autonomy in Physical and Social Confinement

Author(s)

Yasemin Güniz Sertel

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2017.02.002

Affiliation(s)

Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACT

This study comprises an analysis of the American feminist playwright Marsha Norman’s play Getting Out from a socialist-feminist perspective. Getting Out is about the physical and psychological confinement of the victimized protagonist Arlie Holsclaw in contemporary patriarchal American society. Throughout the play, the factors that victimize Arlie are given as the outcomes of a patriarchal society with its basic institutions as the family, educational system, religion and the law symbolized by the correctional rehabilitation. These factors which are under the hegemony of patriarchal authority shape Arlie’s life as beginning from her childhood in the past and define her present search for female autonomy.

KEYWORDS

female autonomy, confinement, rehabilitation, patriarchal society, female victimization

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References

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