The level to which people have controls over their own lives depends on key pillars that define the persons’ locus of control. The ways in which people recognize their self-identity, personality and subsequently construct a substantial formula for structuring and changing their perceived self-identities are essential elements in the determination of the magnitude of control people reserve for themselves.
According to the movie Color Purple, Embroideries and Adultery: The case of Amina Lawal, the control that people have over their own lives stands out as restricted by their experiences shaped by external forces.
In the Color Purple, Celie discovered herself identity through an aid of two women companions. It is upon discovering herself worth that she acquired mechanisms to change how she perceived herself. Celie was just one of the many women who underwent through strict dictation of what they deserved to do.
Her right of self-control was eroded from her at an early age. “At fourteen she already had two children by her father”, who later disappeared forcefully from her based on the force subjected to her of marrying a widower: Albert Johnson.
To Albert Johnson, Celie seemed more of a slave compare to a wife, “Albert makes her clean up his disorderly household and take care of his unruly children…often intimidating Celie into submission and near silence”. It seems evidently clear that people who do not have absolute autonomy to determine what to indulge in, in their lives like Celie, stand out as slaves. With all negative constrains over the years and no love given to Celie, she became quite, shy and afraid.
Characters like Sofia have undergone gender-based seclusion and dictatorship until they have established the much-denied personal freedom to control their lives. She does not allow white male dominance to dictate her life anymore.
Unfortunately, her battle against the white male dominance unlike Celie ends up in jeopardizing her extent of control. At the first time she is encountered in the movie, she appears like indomitable force that could unfold the white male dominance but unfortunately, “after she tells the local white mayor to go to hell” (Walker 6) her spirit is shuttered through jailing and beatings. She thus reverts to the original state of deterred self-control to the extent that she no longer has the opportunity to present her grievance. The white man’s decision to jail her is final and solid.
In attempts to fit within predetermined social requirements, encounters stand clear in Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, of women attempting to fake virginity, infidelity, escape from forced marriages and plastic surgery.
For instance, in Embroideries there stands one particular situation where a grandmother advices her friend who was involved in an affair prior to her marriage to lie about her actual virginity status. To conceal the fact that she had lost her virginity on her wedding night, the grandmother advices her friend to cut her body using a small blade to leave a blood stains.
Unfortunately, her friend panics and cuts the testicles of her new husband. Luckily, the marriage survives, though happy but a faked one since it was not in line with the deeply ingrained social norms. It exemplifies how people’s lives control is dependent on factors extrinsic from forces emanating from an individual. The society has substantial say in determining your control.
The advent of globalization seems to have great contribution in helping people achieve forces that help them fit well in the society, bearing in mind that their control is open to challenges. Globalization, besides it significant contribution towards the development and spread in technology, has a take in empowering the Iranian women with the power of conviction to their controllers.
Since women have no mechanism bringing back their men who have shifted their focus far from them to other women, an incident of a woman who underwent a cosmetic surgery stands out. The woman laughs when her husband pays unquestionable attention on her breast. Unfortunately, “he is really attracted to fat that used to be in her behind” (Satrapi 37).
Ideally, the men’s control is not intrinsically from their personalities but subject to some other source for instance the physical appearance of their women. The issue of economy further contributes towards impeding one’s self-control as exposited next.
The need to feel economically advanced, not to be principally happy, hinder people self-control. In the Satrapi’s work, a tale comes in of a woman who marries a wealthy man who promises to take her abroad. On the wedding day, she receives lots of expensive jewelry: which explains what controlled the woman in arriving at the decision to marry the man.
On waiting for him for three months, the woman meets the man again only in Germany, to discover that he had many mistresses and that “the marriage was a plot to smuggle jewels” (Satrapi 67). Economically crippled individuals experience the worst phenomenon of realization of self-identity and hence control of their lives.
The oppressive systems triggers social changes that make people especially women shift their locus of control based on that that puts them at an advantage. As a way of example, the women in the world of Satrapi prefer being mistresses based on their alleviation from dealing with “man’s dirty socks or bad moods” (Satrapi 91). Wives, rather feel oppressed since they only have an opportunity to celebrate with their men when thing go haywire.
Adultery: The case of Amina Lawal too comes in handy in addressing the issue of the control that people have over their own lives with Lawal setting a working illustration of the matter. On the other extreme, Lawal does not even have the capacity to control her life. Acts of immorality on her part attract attention of a court of law.
She is convicted for adultery and subsequently bearing a child outside wedlock, in Nigeria by Sharia law, punishable by death which is executed by stoning the culprit. As women lobby for an appeal that would see her acquainted, the men shout “Allahu Akbar,” meaning that God is mighty. They even fix the time of execution of the judgment to be immediately the gets baby is weaned.
Conclusion
Based on the expositions tabled in the paper, it suffices to declare people’s capacity to take control and hence the responsibility of their actions as greatly controlled by forces extrinsic from them. The fear to go astray the dictated codes of action gain immense backup from the experiences that various groups of people go through especially women.
The extrinsic forces can result from a social creation and/or administered by over subscription to moral principles dictated by religious affiliations. These forces are discriminatory based on gender or any other societal identities.
Works Cited
Ronald, Grover. Is cable one market Oprah Can’t conquer?, 2001. Web.
Satrapi, Marjane. Embroideries. New York: Pantheon, 2005. Print
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: Complete Summary and Analysis. New York: Pocket, 1985. Print.