"The conduct of life" deals with nasty subjects specifically torture and other kinds of sadistic violence. Setting of the drama is in Latin American country on the years of War World II. The Characters that are presented in the drama are Orlando, an army lieutenant at the start of the play and then becomes lieutenant commander soon after, Leticia, Orlando's wife, ten years older than her husband, Alejo, lieutenant commander, their friend, Nena, a destitute girl of twelve years old, and Olimpia, a servant.
Orlando is a kind of ambitious, selfish, insensitive, bad and lunatic man; it is described in the first scene of the drama when Orlando makes a soliloquy,
"Thirty three and I'm still a lieutenant. In two years I'll receive a promotion or I'll leave the military. I promise I will not spend time feeling sorry for myself. — Instead I will study the situation and draw an effective plan of action. I must eliminate all obstacles.—I will make the acquaintance of people in high power. If I cannot achieve this on my own merit, I will marry a woman in high circle. Leticia must not be an obstacle.—Man must have an ideal, mine is to achieve maximum power. That is my destiny.—No other interest will deter me from this. — My sexual drive is detrimental to my ideals. I must no longer be overwhelmed by sexual passion or I will be delighted beyond hope of recovery." (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1460)
The optimistic generous, naive of Leticia is perpetuated in these dialogues,
"He has no respect for me. He is insensitive. He doesn't listen. You cannot reach him. He is deaf. He is an animal. Nothing touches him except sensuality. He responds to food, to the flesh. To music sometimes, if it is romantic. To the moon. He is romantic but he is not aware of what you are feeling. I can't change him." (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1461)
Even she has noticed that her husband doesn't give any respect to her, she still hopes of his love, "Why not? (Pause.) Do you think I'm crazy? – He can't help it. – Do you think I'm crazy? – Because I love him?" (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1462)
Their friend, Alejo never fights against the all bad behaviors of Orlando; even he showed them exactly in front of his eyes. He just stands still as if he is blind, deaf and mute. He is a sort of guy with weak character, he is very skeptical, apathetic and pessimistic, it can be assumed from what he says in the drama, "Why do you want to worry about any of that? What's the use? Do you think you can change anything? Do you think anyone can change anything?" (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1462)
Olimpia is a breakthrough character, her profession as a servant can't block her to become rebellious, brave, stubborn, and fussing woman. Hence, she dares to challenge and threaten her jerk master, Orlando,
"You drive me crazy! (He pushes her of.) You drive me crazy! You are a bastard! One day I'm going to kill you when you're asleep! I'm going to open you up and cut your entrails and feed them to the snakes. (She tries to strangle him.) I'm going to tear your heart out and feed it to the dogs! I'm going to cut your head open and have the cats eat your brain! (Reaching for his fly.) I'm going to cut your peepee and hang it on a tree and feed it to the birds!" (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1470)
The last character which is not less important is Nena. She is a young, beautiful, innocent, hopeless, and weak girl. It seems that she has the all categories to become a victim of sexual desire of man domination which defines woman as the object of men. And since the girl discovers at the same time that her destiny is to be an object of desire. In this era, it is quite shocking to hear confession of a girl toward sexual abuse that tortured her badly like what Nena said to Olimpia, in the scene 15 of the drama. And it remains a question, what does Maria Irene Fornes imply in making statements below?
" …Then he turns me on my stomach and puts himself inside me. And he says I belong to him. (There is a pause.) I want to conduct each day of my life in the best possible way. I should value the things I have. And I should value all those who are near me. And I should value the kindness that other bestow upon me. And if someone should treat me unkindly, I should not blind myself with rage, but I should see them and receive them, since maybe they are in worse pain than me." (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1473)
Marx as a theorist of the world history and society and Freud as a theorist of the self believe that, "This human textuality can be seen not only as world and self, as the representation of a world in terms of a self at play with other selves and generating this representation, but also in the world and self all implicated in an intertextuality." (Spivak in Con Davis, 1984: 520-521) Does it mean that Fornes admits that the long life duty of woman is obedience? Accepting her destiny as the object of man is an appropriateness?
It doesn't seem so, because, apparently, Fornes wants to convey her feminist perspective by making a gender sensitive drama. As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a feminist theorist defined, "Today I would see my work as the developing of a reading method that is sensitive to gender, race, and class. The earlier remarks would apply indirectly to the development of class-sensitive and directly to the development of gender sensitive reading" (Spivak in Con Davis, 1984: 524)
So, this drama is made to draw the women attention about their selves' dignities. Women should not surrender to the patriarchal culture which is not fair to them. The real massage of Fornes can be seen on the stage direction at the end of the drama, "She doesn't answer. He puts his hand inside her blouse. She lets out an excruciating scream. He lets her go and walks to the right of the dinning room. She goes to the telephone table, opens the drawer, takes a gun and shoots Orlando. Orlando falls dead…." (Fornes in Birkerts, 1993: 1476) The Leticia's consciousness of her stupidity in giving her sincere love to an irresponsible ambitious man makes her terminate him for good. It probably can be interpreted as a calling for women to unite against the tyrannies of men.
References:
Con Davis, Robert, and Ronald Schleifer, Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies, (New York & London: Longman, 1984)
Birkerts, Sven P. Literature: The Evolving Canon, (Boston: Allynand Bacon, 1993)
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