Studying the Themes of Fefu and Her Friends and Their Relation to a Vietnamese Wedding

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Introduction

Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes is a feminist play written and produced in 1977 and has a wide cultural impact due to the many important and well-represented themes. It is unlike Fornes to write a play without any deeper meaning and after reading A Vietnamese Wedding that point was further ingrained in my mind. A Vietnamese Wedding is not necessarily a play as much as it is a performance. It includes the audience in the performance and tells a story about the Vietnamese culture around marriage. In this response, I will be studying the themes discussed by Fornes in Fefu and Her Friends and see their application, or lack thereof, to A Vietnamese Wedding.

Conformity and Insanity

In Fefu, this theme may be one of the most important ones. It’s shown most prevalently in Julia’s character. Julia is losing the battle with her inner demons. Her inner judges force her to denounce her intelligence and beat her. She is forced to enumerate a prayer that sends a misogynistic point of view that prevails in a patriarchal society. Fornes creates a world where the idea of a woman being free is so absurd that this line of thinking divides the whole play. Either you conform, or you’re insane. Either you think like Julia in her prayer, or you live as a free spirit like Emma. It is an extreme but somewhat accurate depiction of the two sides of the coin on this issue. Julia is a prisoner in her own mind and a prisoner of societal conformity, so much to the point she is paralyzed. Sue talks about this divide when she recounts a story of a couple of intelligent, beautiful, and young women they used to know. They were sent to a shrink because they were too beautiful and too smart. They were considered insane for being themselves.

In A Vietnamese Wedding, this theme is somewhat explored. The insanity portion isn’t really followed but the conformity theme is an underlying one. It isn’t expressly indicated, yet conformity is behind every action that is taken in this performance. The very message of the performance is about conformity and how these arranged marriages and customs in the Vietnamese culture centered on marriage are all based on societal compliance. Some marriages happen against the will of the woman or the man, just for the happiness of the parents. This mirrors Fefu’s conflict between freedom for women (insanity) and complying with patriarchal standards (conformity).

Sexuality and Gender Roles

Sexuality manifests itself in Fefu through discussions about sex and their relationship with men such as Emma and Fefu’s conversation about genitals. The idea that a lesbian relationship is treated as any other heterosexual relationship is extremely crucial (Paula and Cecilia). Many of the characters are constantly fighting internally on whether they should express their sexuality or embrace it. This is mostly manifested with Julia. Julia allows herself to believe that men’s sexuality is pure, and women’s is not. These are deeply entrenched stereotypes in society, and they are handled with care in this play.

A Vietnamese Wedding is mainly centered on the theme of gender roles. Fornes speaks about how the Vietnamese would marry young because the family with a daughter would view her marriage as having one less mouth to feed. The family receiving the daughter would view her as an extra hand around the house. As for the man he’s seen as an extra source of income for the family he’s joining. Gender roles and culture’s insistence on them force a man and women to commit the rest of their lives to one another at a young age.

Relationships Between Women

Fefu and Her Friends highlight a multitude of ways in which women relate to each other whether that be through long-lasting friendships such as that of Fefu and Emma, a lack of understanding such as with Fefu and Christina who can’t seem to find a common ground or a romantic relationship such as that of Paula and Cecilia.

This theme isn’t explored at all in A Vietnamese Wedding but what is explored is the relationship between men and women or the lack thereof. One poem in the performance speaks of a woman’s regret and sadness over her marriage, thus a nonexistent relationship. Another poem speaks of love between the man and woman and the relationship they have. The story about Tan and Sung (which will be mentioned later) is less about the relationship between Tan and his wife, but about him and his brother, Sung. A Vietnamese Wedding doesn’t necessarily have a boundary on the relationships or non-relationships in it from a gender perspective.

Social Status

Fornes touches lightly on this theme in Fefu through the character Paula and her monologue about her early life struggles with money and how she believes education for the poor should be handled. She doesn’t argue the validity of having these social classes, on the contrary, she embraces it by further creating a divide. She instead, expresses that help is needed to bridge the gap that exists.

Social status is a crucial part of determining whether a man and woman can get married according to Fornes in A Vietnamese Wedding. Fornes doesn’t challenge this notion nor does she provide any sort of commentary on it. This theme isn’t as important or as closely followed in this performance as other themes are, but it is prevalent and touches the matter very briefly but effectively.

Marriage and Love

There are many different relationships represented in Fefu. In the first line of the play, Fefu says, ‘My husband married me to have a constant reminder of how loathsome women are.’ Although Fefu is saying this to incite controversy in the room, by the end of the play the audience sees the pain Fefu feels because there is a lot of truth behind the statement she makes, and it hurts her. She unloads her pain on Julia, saying she needs Phillip (her husband) emotionally and physically but he dislikes her and will not fill that role for her. He has thus created an air of dominance in their relationship as he is the “wanted” not the “want-er”. Cecilia is very similar to Phillip in that sense when it comes to Paula. She suppresses affection to manipulate Paula but in the case of Paula and Cecilia, Paula has grown since their break up and she stands her ground with Cecilia. Paula’s strength draws Cecilia back to her unlike in the dying relationship between Fefu and Phillip.

A Vietnamese Wedding’s entire premise is built around the theme of marriage and love. Whether love exists in a marriage or not is a big question. Especially in an arranged marriage which not only is part of the culture in Vietnam but in many places even to this day. In Lebanon arranged marriages still occur much against the wills of women. The question came up to me while reading this play; is it a marriage if there is no love? This drew close parallels to Fefu and Phillip’s relationship to me and I wondered what a marriage between the two would look like in the world of A Vietnamese Wedding. To answer the question that I posed, I think it isn’t a marriage if there is no love. Fefu and Phillip’s relationship, to me, is just old acquaintances sharing a home together. The lack of love slowly kills the emotional tie that exists between a married couple and so marriage starting with no love is just a void contract between two families at that point.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there were a lot of thematic parallels between Fefu and Her Friends and A Vietnamese Wedding despite the disparity in the lengths of the plays. Fornes fit many themes and takeaways in such a short performance in A Vietnamese Wedding and also spread so many themes in Fefu in a balanced and holistic manner.

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