Christian: Go on. Take a peek in the truck. And don’t say i don’t think about you.
Mama:How many?
Christian: Three.
Mama: Three. But, I can’t use three right now. You know that.
Christian: Of course you can. And I’ll give you a good price if you take all of them.
When you read these lines from the play, you would think that these people must be talking about some sort of product that anyone would sell or buy. That’s why it was extremely surprising that they were talking this way about women. The things that were being sold were not inanimate objects, no, they were real live human beings. They were women. Can you believe it?! They’re selling women?!!!
If that’s hard to take in, imagine an uncle selling his very niece. Well that’s exactly what happened in Ruined by Lynn Nottage. Christian had to sell his very niece Sophie to Mama Nadi. Why on earth would anyone ever sell a family relative?!!?? Well in this very circumstance, it was the best thing that Christian could do for his niece, Mama Nadi’s house was the safest place for her to be.
All of these examples come back to a very important issue which is present in Lynn Nottage’s play Ruined, which is the role of women in conflict areas. Rape has always been and is always going to be a very important issue. Women don’t deserve to be treated unfairly, but since the beginnings of time women have been. It seems that in times of war this unfair treatment of women increases and becomes far more common. Why so?
They say that war brings out the evil in everyone. I guess that this can be seen as very true for men. In times of war, why do men take advantage of women? War really changes everybody and I suppose that men feel that in a time of war it is appropriate to take advantage of women. Stealing women, raping them, and ultimately RUINING them is not a what’s going to solve the problems in a war. C’MON MEN, you should be smarter than that!!!
“You will not fight your battles on my body anymore.” This line by Salima really expresses the feelings of many women throughout the course of the entire play. Why did men have to take out their evil intentions on women? Why couldn’t they just fight their war and leave the innocent women alone. Does war really change a person that much that they could have the potential to do such inhumane things?
Can you blame a women for feeling ruined after these horrific things happened to her? It must be horrible. And then what is a women supposed to do when her family won’t take her back in. They’re ashamed of what happened to her, but did she have any control over the situation, no! I guess that’s why I was so outraged when Samila’s husband Fortune wouldn’t take her back into their home. It’s not like Samila chose to have all those men do horrible things to her right, why couldn’t he understand this. And then he goes back to try to bring her back to their home. He expects everything to be the same?!, but how could things be the same, after all Samila, just like many other women had been ruined. Was it cute that he came back with the pan? Yea i guess so, but would it have been better if he would have just accepted her back into their home in the first place, a duhhh!
I guess a way to describe the way I felt while reading this play was sad. It really made me upset to think about how this actually is based upon a true story, and unfortunately things like this do occur. Lynn Nottage purposely makes you feel this way when you read this play, she wants you to wonder, what can I do to change this. She makes you want to find out more.
Well I guess I have to thank Lynn Nottage because now I do want to find out more, and I hope that everyone else would want to too.
