Analysis Of 'The Shawl'

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The Shawl, 1985, by David Mamet, deals with issues of truth and money in the middle class. Mamet presents a case of a woman and two men who deceive her. Already in the first act, John, the initiator of the con act, articulates the conflict between belief and truth as he tells the woman she has a small scar on her left knee, which she must look at in order to realize it exists, since it is the first time she hears of it from a stranger and convinced she does not have it. John locates truth above belief, because truth clarifies all doubts and makes life coherent. After the first session John says to his skeptic partner Charles that she was won over, which rings a bell and enables the connection to another play by Mamet, House of Games, …show more content…

He is so convinced in his analysis, whereas the audience sees him lying to himself, caught in his own creation, which is pathetic. Charles and John’s plan to listen to Miss A and gather information about her, that she provides in between the lines, which they interpret according to the female stereotype, is similar to the “tell” Mike refers to in House of Games when he asks Margaret if she knows what a “tell” is. Mike refers to human slips, like body language or sayings that give them away. Then they will match the pieces of information and create a story and a sub-conscience personality which they will treat. This is their profession. It is also similar to the charade the con men put in front of Margaret in House of Games; the principles of the con are the same. These mind games reveal a lot about the politics of the sexes. How men think the female mind operates and the irony surfaces when they are wrong in their assumption. This is how the grotesque is created with the mutual understanding , or shall I say, misunderstanding between the sexes, which is a major theme in Mamet’s …show more content…

She claims sex is a biological difference between men and women, while gender is culturally constructed and imposed on one by the expectations of society. The gender of one is defined by the mold prepared for the sex, predestination, a set of characteristics that supposedly match the sex. However gender is a performance that has nothing to do with biology. This is clarified at the end of Edmond when he finds peace alongside of a man and is restless no more, in jail, where he is free with no social expectations of looking for his manhood through performing sex with women in strip-clubs, for

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