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Marisol Play Quotes

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A persisting issue of destructiveness lingers throughout Riviera's play Marisol. Better said, violence is remarkably commonplace in this play. Most often, characters try to hurt others as in physically attacking them and others hurt themselves most often through illicit substances that cause stillborn babies. In his play Marisol, Riviera wants to expose humanity's self-destructive behavior and the disastrous consequences it has on others. The ultimate reason why Riviera depicts humanity's destructive behavior on a repetitive basis comes down to economics. For example, in the very beginning of the play when Marisol is reading the newspaper in the subway, a man with a golf club approaches her. At some point he says he "lost [his] Citibank MasterCard". …show more content…

Jealousy is one of the seven sins and clearly never an asset to any society. Another argument that shows that economics is often the reason for humanity's self-destructive behavior is consumerism. In our society, we are continually encouraged to consume as much and as fast as we can. In short, we strive to be instantly gratified instead of appreciating delayed gratification. To put it in perspective, when June and Marisol are talking, they see smokestacks. Lenny says that it's a "federally funded torture center where they violate people who have gone over their credit card limit". This clearly illustrates my argument, as people who would have resisted instant gratification would not have gone over their credit card limit. There is also a reference to crematoriums in extermination camps with "they cremate the bodies," as if the people brought into the facility in question are first tortured, killed, and then cremated. However, there is an inconsistency because why would they kill people that have gone over their credit card limit if this is the main purpose of a …show more content…

The most prominent example is Lenny. When he talks to June and Marisol, he ends up throwing June around the room because he lost control of himself. Consequently, he ends up being booted out of June's apartment because she decided she "can't mother" him anymore. That's why he ends up on the streets where he is pushed in a vicious circle that leads to more violence. He ends up hitting June, and he admits to it when he says, "Well, I'm glad I hit her!". However, more points out that living on the street is more dangerous and puts you more at risk than if you would live in an apartment. For example, Lenny says, "It's too dangerous for a girl out there," clearly confirming that the likelihood that someone will attack her is a lot greater than if she'd be inside. A proof of his claim is that Lenny "saw a poor homeless guy being set on fire by Nazi skinheads". On the other hand, Lenny was an experiment of human cruelty and bestiality himself, as he was a guinea pig for a medical experiment for six years and it clearly ended up degrading him. He explains himself that it made him feel "friggin' loopy". We could ask ourselves whether the army's medicine was really for the good cause. Did the experimenters really help Lenny, or even humanity in general? We could ask ourselves even how many other people have been experimented on and have suffered just like Lenny. Has there

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