Patriarchal forces- tying postcolonial criticism to feminist criticism through Cloud 9

For the last blog I thought I would tie together postcolonial criticism and feminist criticism through Cloud 9. All three deal with the idea of the patriarchal forces and what it is like to try and break free from that control.
Postcolonial criticism, as we read in Barry likes literature that deals with cultural, social, regional, and national differences (Barry 192). Could 9 definitely deals with these differences by moving the plot from a British colony in Africa in the Victorian times in ACT I to present day London in ACT II. Also postcolonial criticism deals with European colonizing powers and how they see pre-colonial eras as pre-civilized (Barry 193). Although Cloud 9 does not deal with pre colonized times it does point out the idea that the colonizer is the best and only thing of importance to the colonized. In the end of Cloud 9, Clive says how he “[…] used to be proud of the British. There was a high ideal” (111). He is saying that when the British had control over colonies in Africa things were run the way they were supposed to be and now that these colonies have freedom there is chaos. It just reiterates the idea that postcolonial criticism deals with. Another point of postcolonial criticism is about writers. They feel postcolonial writers evoke or create a pre-colonial version of their own nation, rejecting the modern which is tainted with colonial status of their countries (Barry 194). This could possible be why there are so many shocking sexual relations in Cloud 9. The play could be trying to prove a point and go against this idea of the colonial status and dominance. And simply they could be there to prove that times were changing and by making things so outrages it proves the point. It also provides a reason to see that yes times are changing but not always in a progressive linear way. Postcolonial writers express unstable societal changes and gender identity problems that post-structuralists deal with as well. Post-structuralism is “concerned to show the fluid and unstable nature of personal and gender identity, the shifting, ‘polyvalent’, contradictory currents of signification within texts, and the way literature itself is a site on which ideological struggles are acted out” (Barry 196). There is struggle where there is change and Cloud 9 and also feminist criticism deals a lot with this struggle with gender roles and sexuality.
The stages of postcolonial criticism, adopt, adapt, and adept, resemble the developing stages of feminist criticism (Barry 197). Postcolonial criticism took as its main subject matter the white representations of colonial countries and criticized them for their limitations and biasness. This is much like what feminists did when the subject was the representation of women by male’s novelists. Cloud 9 makes a direct remark to this problem with the character of Martin. He says, “I’m writing a novel about women from the women’s point of view” (83). He can not be writing it from a woman’s point of view because he is not a woman. It is showing how absolutely ridiculous this idea was.
Feminist criticism also saw how representations of women controlled their identities and behavior (Barry 121). In Cloud 9 you see a lot of the female characters struggling with their true identities and how to act because the way they want to act is against the typical female model that has been set up for them. We see Lin who is a lesbian struggle with her identity for herself and for her daughter. She lets her daughter be more ‘masculine’ but only to a certain point because she doesn’t want her to be picked on. Also, Betty struggles because she at first is the typical female wife and mother. She does everything that men want her to but in ACT II we see her leave her husband and try to gain independence. She introduces herself by saying, “I live or Clive. The whole aim of my life is to be what he looks for in a wife. I am a man’s creation as you see, and what men want is what I want to be” (4). She then later goes on to say that Clive is her society; she lets the patriarchy run her life (14). Then in ACT II you start to see her struggle with the patriarchy and wanting to be free of it. She does leave her husband and gets a job but she becomes a secretary for a doctor which is falling right back into the patriarchal dominance because a secretary is a typical female role (102). She gains liberation when she goes against the patriarchy and masturbates (105). She takes the man right out of the equation. In the end she embraces her younger self from ACT I, because she is finally free from dominance (111).
Another thing feminist criticism discusses is fiction in the nineteenth century. It focused on the male partner being the one who determines the female’s social position and the female’s main focus was on marriage. In Cloud 9, the introduction of Betty by Clive proves this point. “My wife is all I dreamt a wife should be, and everything she is she owes to me” (3). Then later on in the play we see Martin, Victoria’s husband, discussing work with her. He keeps saying she should go to work but not because he is forcing her to. By him having to repeatedly say he is not forcing her is actually saying the opposite. He wants her to become a working woman no matter if she really wants to be or not (81). One of the feminist theorists we read was Cixous and she discussed the question, “What does she want?” She is pointing out that there is no place for woman’s desire in society that she ends up not knowing what to do with it, no longer knowing where to put it, conceal it, or if it even exists (R&W 233). This is seen in Cloud 9 through Betty, Victoria, and Lin. Betty and Lin are discussing living without men and Betty says, “It’s strange not having a man in the house. You don’t know who to do things for.” Then Lin says, “Yourself.” And Betty replies, “Oh, that’s very selfish” (83). Betty doesn’t even know what she wants because she let herself be dominated all her life by men and now that she is gaining freedom she is completely lost.
All three, postcolonial criticism, feminist criticism, and Cloud 9 all deal with this idea of the patriarchal dominance. Cloud 9 has the character of Victoria be played by a doll in ACT I to show that as a female she has no voice and a male can speak for her better then she can for herself. In Feminist criticism women were gaining freedom at the time but they still needed to be liberated by a male. In Cloud 9, Martin points out that women have been liberated and then says, […] which I am totally in favour of […]” (81). By him saying this he is saying that it is ok for women to gain freedoms because men think it is ok. Lastly, postcolonial criticism deals with the dominance of the colonizer. It discusses, like in feminist criticism and Cloud 9 the female having no voice, the colonized has no voice or even history until the dominate colonizer takes over. All three are showing how there is always a dominate force that takes over and through Cloud 9 you can see the absurdity of this and how people think.