“Discuss how those in power in society maintain their dominant position in one text in your comparative course. Develop your response with reference to the text.
The text I have studied is Sive by John B. Keane. Characters in this text maintain their power and dominant position through manipulation, fear and threats.
Mena is a central character in the play. She is the wife of Mike Glavin, who lives with his mother, Nanna and his niece, Sive. Mena has a lot of power in the play, as she is able to force through ‘a match’ between 17 year old Sive and the pensioner, Sean Dota. Despite thinking that he is ‘the man of the house,’ Mike is forced to follow through with this evil plan, because Mena pushes him throughout the text. When faced with losing control, she emasculates Mike by questioning his masculinity, calling him ‘a man of straw.’ Mike is totally against the match saying, ‘Sive and that ‘oul corpse of a man, Sean Dota.’ However, he goes against his own instincts and allows Mena’s power over him to allow the marriage.
Nanna is another character who threatens the power of Mena and Thomasheen. She is adamant that Sive should continue her education and she stands up to Mena on a number of occasions. However, when their power is threatened, they use fear and intimidation to maintain their dominance. Thomasheen tells Mena to give Sive no option but to marry Sean Dota. “Tell her you will bell-rag her through the parishif she goes against you. Tell her you will hunt the old woman into the county home.” Mena also sees the danger in the relationship between Sive and Nanna and she seperates them at night, meaning that Nanna will not be able to interfere in her plans for Sive. Thomasheen also uses threats to maintain his power when he says to Nanna, ‘you are a lone woman with your husband feeding worms in his trench. You have terrible gumption with no one left to back you.’ This is clearly a threat to Nanna urging her to back down and allow Sive to marry Sean Dota.
Sean Dota is another character in the text that has power and he maintains this position of dominance due to his social status. He is a farmer, who is very well off. Even though he has money, he is unmarried but wants to get married before he dies. He employs the services of Thomasheen to make a match for him, with the promise of a lot of money for Thomasheen and the family of his bride. Thomasheen tells us that he ‘have the grass of twenty cows. He have fat cattle besides and he have the holding of money.’ When Sive comes back from a walk with Sean Dota, she tells Nanna, ‘he nearly tore the coat off me….like an ould sick thing.’ It is clear that he thinks that his wealth gives him the right to do whatever he wants and gives him ownership of young Sive. He maintains his power by buying off those closest to Sive, like Mena and Mike. For example, we hear that he has given £50 for the wedding and Thomasheen says, ‘Mena will have £40 of the £50 for herself. Sean maintains his power by buying off those around him.
Although the priest is not seen in the text, it is clear that he and the church hold a lot of power in the cultural context of the text. When Mike was going to arrange the wedding, he says, ‘I’ll shave if I’m to see the priest,’ telling us that the clergy were revered in the world of the text. The priest and the church maintain their power through fear. For example in the final scene, when we see the lifeless body of Sive on the kitchen table, Mike mentions that she needs to be ‘buried in holy ground,’ even though this won’t be possible as she died by suicide.
Sive’s life was marked by her ‘illegitimacy’ as her parents were not married when she was born. Mena tells her, ‘you are a bye-child, a common bye child, a bastard.’ By continuously referring to Sive in such a condescending manner, Mena maintains her control over Sive and reinforces the control that the church has over the lives of the people in the text. Sive grows up in a world where she is marked as different due to the strict rules of the church. Ironically, even in death, she is treated differently by the church authorities, showing the strict rules that ensures the dominant position of religion in Irish society.
It is clear that those in power do everything they can to maintain their dominant position in the world of the text.
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