Sample Essay On The C Above C Above High C:

Analysis of the Gender Roles

On the first look, the play is depicting a few days of the life of a great musician who tries hard to be effective in the political problems of his time. But as we go deeper, we realize that many other social issues have been addressed in this play; issues that were of great importance in that time, and still exist today.
One of these controversial issues is the role of the women in a society. When we consider how men view women, and more importantly, how women view themselves in a particular era, we can get a good image of what has been the role of a woman in that time and that specific society. Unfortunately, the results are not really satisfying for a feminist investigator.
In The C above C above High C, women can only be defined in relation to a man (that is exactly the definition of a male-dominated society). None of the female characters in this play have an identity of their own: Summers by is Eisenhower’s mistress, Mamie is Eisenhower’s wife, Lil is one of Armstrong’s wives, etc.
While men are so active throughout the play, always planning to make changes and follow their goals (whether these goals are good or bad), and the women do not seem to be doing anything important in their lives; all they do is complaining about their husbands’ infidelity and regretting the past.
In act two scene three, there is a monologue by Lucille Armstrong, when she stands in the middle of the stage alone, wearing an apron - which is there to show that she is a domestic housewife. She says something about following her dream and becoming a dancer, but then she corrects herself and says that there is no time for these kinds of activities, because she has married a “public man” and the most she can do is “watch television” or “sew”. Ishmael Reed has powerfully depicted the image of a typical housewife, not just in 1950s America, but everywhere in the world. Lucille Armstrong is a proper choice for Reed to express what is inside the mind of housewives similar to her.
Lucille then goes on talking about her giving up her dreams for Louis, and wonders whether it is worth it to forget what she wants, “just to love him, have his clothes ready, cook his meals, run his household. And no matter where he goes or with whom he does his one-night stands, he always comes back to queens.” Reed has characterized a woman who has nothing significant of her own, she is not an important person, she has not even succeeded in continuing her dance career, so all she can do is to be proud of her famous husband, and no matter how unfaithful he is to her, she is just happy that he comes back home at the end of the day.
The play is successful in giving the reader an honest image of what the majority of the women in Armstrong’s time were about. Reed’s approach in creating this image through dialogues and monologues - even in choosing the clothes and setting the scenes - is definitely effective. Reed has emphasized this issue because it is one of the most important problems of that time and always will be important. Though it has been years since the play has been written, the monologues and dialogues of the women do not sound odd to the reader, which means that the male-dominancy has not yet ceased.

Works Cited:

“An Analysis Of “the C Above C Above High C”' .Researchomatic. 1 , 2015.
<http://www.researchomatic.com/An-Analysis-Of-the-C-Above-C-Above-High-C-119165.html >.