Customer center

We are a boutique essay service, not a mass production custom writing factory. Let us create a perfect paper for you today!

Example research essay topic: Millions Of Dollars Comfort Women - 2,135 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

... politically motivated literary piece. In order for us to do this, we will have to draw a certain historical parallels. For example, the best proof that Holocaust really did occur are the pictures of bulldozers pushing corpses into the mass graves.

It never occurs to people who believe in Holocaust that these pictures are simply the pictures of corpses and that they do not suggest that Germans were the perpetrators. The pictures of dead people do not specify the cause of death they could have been the victims of Allied bombings or the victims of typhus epidemics. Yet, Germans are the ones to blame, because these horrible pictures are being periodically shown on TV, within a context of discussing evilness of Nazis. The same can be said about comfort women there is no doubt that Japanese used them as sexual slaves, but this is not enough to cause a social outcry. Japanese soldiers need to be dehumanized and the best way to do it, is discussing the graphic details of Japanese atrocities. Ensler's play comes in very handy in this respect.

Let us come up with another example. Israel is the country where sexual slavery is constitutional ized. According to Israelis laws, every Jew can be in possession of slaves, for as long as these slaves are not Jews themselves. Thousands of White girls from Eastern Europe and Russia are being lured to Israel annually, to work as exotic dancers, only to find themselves being turned into modern slaves, without the right to complain to Israeli police. How often do feminists like Enslers raise their voice against such practice?

This question is rhetorical, of course, but it points out to the fact that monologue Comfort Women is not as much of a literary piece but the tool of extracting money from people who are being instilled with the sense of self-guilt, namely Japanese. It is not by pure coincidence that monologue contains following passage: Japanese government Say it Please We are sorry, Comfort Women Say it to me We are sorry to me We are sorry to me So far, Japanese do not feel sorry. They are perfectly aware of what is going to happen, after they say sorry the example of Germany, which annually pays millions and millions of dollars to victims of Holocaust, who were not even born at the time of WWII, is just too obvious. Therefore, my task, as director, consists of breaking psychological immunity of Japanese people, in order for them to assume the blame for practicing sexual slavery, during WWII. Comfort Women has the potential of causing public outcry, if properly staged. Every word must be pronounced by reader in highly emotional manner, because this will deprive audience of its ability to rationalize monologues semantic properties.

In fact, the text of monologue should not be read but chanted, with voices pitch going up and down, on continuous basis. In order for the metaphysical potential of monologue to be fully realized, the reader of the text must be de-personified. This is because this monologue describes the collective suffering of comfort women. The powerful dramatic effect can be achieved by having reader dressed in black suit or toga, with readers head and hands being open to observation. As a director, I will try to have performer act as the embodiment of collective consciousness. Therefore, it is very important for the reader not to have outstanding facial features, which can be easily remembered.

For example, Sigourney Weaver would suit perfectly for the role, because, in public consciousness, she represents fragile femininity, which is being masculinized to a significant degree, while remaining subjected to cruel reality for considerable period of time. It would not hurt if potential reader starved for some time, before the actual performance, as it would help her to sound genuinely tragic. The narrative tone will need to have melodic properties. In other words, the pitch of readers voice will have to be adjusted to the actual meaning of pronounced words and to the context of every particular sentence, as whole. For example, the reading of the following section from monologue needs to begin on the high note with the pitch of readers voice being slowly lowered, as she proceeds towards the end of the section: Fifty Japanese soldiers a day Sometimes there would be a ship of them Strange barbaric things Do it even when we bleed The character of reader would have to be slightly elevated above the stage.

This could be easily done with her standing on a chair, for example. However, the chair itself must be concealed from viewers. Since reader engages in monologue, on behalf hundred of thousands of women, it very important to recreate the atmosphere of social dynamism on the stage. For this, I would hire 50 - 100 women of Asian descend, as extras. Their role would be walking back and forth, along the stage, while reader reads the text.

They would have to appear as being emotionally disturbed. Periodically, a few males, dressed in Japanese uniform, will have to come on the stage with whips in their hands and brutally yell on these women. Every time reader starts with the new sentence, it will have to be accompanied with Japanese military march (or any other military music) playing in the background, which slowly fades away and becomes replaced with Bach's toccatas, written in d-minor, for example. Glenn Goulds Bach variations can also be used as musical accompaniment, because they emanate existential travis. The stage decorations are not that important, within a context of performing monologue on the stage.

However, it would only add authenticity to the performance if there were Japanese military posters and the portrait of Emperor Hirohito hanging in the background. These posters will represent the oppressiveness of Japanese military machine, to which comfort women became subjected against their will. At the same time, I think it would be wrong to force viewers to associate performance with a certain moral message. Everybody understands that forcing women to have sex, under the fear of punishment, is wrong.

The monologue must assault viewers sense of good taste, in order for the ideas, contained in it, to be remembered. For example, while reader comes up with following sentence: A girl drinking chemicals in the bathroom A girl killed by a bomb A girl beaten with a rifle over and over A girl running headfirst into a wall A girls malnourished body dumped in the river To drown, it would have to be accompanied by the cries of women that are being shot or drowned. During the course of reading this part, Japanese guards will approach a few women with babies (dolls wrapped with blanket) in their hands to take babies away and to dump them into the river. This will invoke the images of Nazi brutality, which, in its turn, will double the dramatic effect of the monologue, in general. The crimes committed against comfort women cannot be proven in the court of law; however, this does not make them less real.

Therefore, the task of director would be to make these crimes appear as being genuine and anonymous at the same time. This is why I will suggest that the reading of certain words, in monologue, needs to be delegated to extras. For example, after reader says: What they did to us over and over: , the unknown victims of sexual abuse, presented on the stage, will have to chant, one after another: Cursed, Spanked, Twisted, Sterilized, Drugged, Slapped and Punched. It is important to insure that these words are being spoken out from different points on the stage, because it will help viewers to realize the immensity of comfort womens tragedy.

Actors must be aware of the fact that monologue is an unofficial accusation of Japanese authorities, which will draw a very practical consequences, if recognized. Therefore, it must be performed in such way that the rational doubts about the validity of comfort womens claims, would disappear, in the minds of viewers, after they had seen the performance. This is why; the voices of anonymous victims of institutionalized sexual abuse must sound as voices from the grave loud, clear, ominous and illusive. Monologues reader needs to find a fixed point somewhere behind the audience and to keep looking at it, while speaking. This will create the impression that reader is consumed by the feelings of fear, shame and mistrust, which derive out of her experiences as comfort woman. She needs to look as somewhat withdrawn person, who had been through the emotional shock, as it will serve as the best proof that comfort women in Japan were subjected to various abuses for real.

In order for monologues message to be delivered in the way it was originally intended by the author, it needs to appeal to peoples emotional side. It needs to suppress their sense of logic, so that after having left the theater, viewers would feel guilt over the fact that they could not do anything to help comfort women, even though that majority of them were not even alive, during the time of WWII. I would suggest for each of extras to pick its own person of interest out of audience, and to keep looking at him or her, as if asking a silent question: Why didnt you help me? Why world was so indifferent to my suffering?

Will you be able to sleep, now that you know what happened to comfort women? . When it will come to the part where reader asks Japanese government to say sorry, all the extras on the stage will have to turn towards viewers and to begin chanting: Say it, Say Sorry, Say we are sorry, Say me, See me and so on. The degree of professionalism, on the part of actors, can be measured by how many emotionally unstable viewers will break down in tears. The leading actor needs to be able to make every member of audience to imagine of what it felt like being one of those comfort women. This can be done if emotional assault on the audience never looses its momentum, until monologue is over. Even though that the pitch of readers voice changes, as she goes through the text, the emotional intensity of her speech needs to be progressively increased.

Moreover, this intensity cannot be maintained, without viewers becoming emotionally responsive to what is being said on the stage. Therefore, just as an upstage comedian, reader of Comfort Women monologue must constantly keep its hand on the pulse of audiences responsiveness. Thus, we can say that actors ability to read text from its memory on the stage, while being watched by many people, is not only the thing that qualifies her for the role. Along with being a good actor, she also needs to be a good psychologist and to know how to manipulate with viewers emotional reactions.

The extensive research needs to be conducted on the subject of what defines the emotional properties of Japanese mentality, in order for the monologue to affect viewers in most effective manner, while being staged for Japanese audience. Nevertheless, it appears that performance of Comfort Women monologue can only be associated with overwhelming social acceptance in Western countries, because Western viewers have already been instilled with complex of historical guilt: therefore, they can relate to Japanese perpetrators of crimes against comfort women, just as Eve Ensler's male audience can truly relate to womens physiological problems, described in Vagina Monologues in most graphic manner imaginable. In order to conclude this paper, we need to say that only practice will show whether performances of Ensler's monologue on the stage might have the potential of triggering a public outcry powerful enough to qualify Enslers as representative of comfort women, with the right to accept monetary compensation from Japanese government, on their behalf. It is not a secret that the release of Shindlers List movie resulted in Swiss banks agreeing to pay millions of dollars in compensations to Holocaust survivors and even to their descendants, simply because otherwise, these banks would have been branded as anti-Semitic and forced to close down. If notion of comfort women continues to be popularized, it will eventually cause Japanese government to admit its wrongdoings and to offer money to survived victims of sexual slavery in Japan. We can only hope that if this happens, it would be the real victims to benefit from the fact and not the self-appointed promoters of humanitarian causes, such as Eve Enslers.

Bibliography: Horn, Dottie Comfort Women. 1997. Research at Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill. 24 Apr. 2008. web Morris-Suzuki, Tessa Comfort Women: Its Time for the Truth. 2007. Nautilus Institute. 24 Apr. 2008. web Yoshiko, Nozaki The Comfort Women Controversy: History and Testimony. 31 Jul. 2005. ZNet. 24 Apr. 2008.

web


Free research essays on topics related to: japanese soldiers, japanese military, comfort women, millions of dollars, sexual abuse

Research essay sample on Millions Of Dollars Comfort Women

Writing service prices per page

  • $18.85 - in 14 days
  • $19.95 - in 3 days
  • $23.95 - within 48 hours
  • $26.95 - within 24 hours
  • $29.95 - within 12 hours
  • $34.95 - within 6 hours
  • $39.95 - within 3 hours
  • Calculate total price

Our guarantee

  • 100% money back guarantee
  • plagiarism-free authentic works
  • completely confidential service
  • timely revisions until completely satisfied
  • 24/7 customer support
  • payments protected by PayPal

Secure payment

With EssayChief you get

  • Strict plagiarism detection regulations
  • 300+ words per page
  • Times New Roman font 12 pts, double-spaced
  • FREE abstract, outline, bibliography
  • Money back guarantee for missed deadline
  • Round-the-clock customer support
  • Complete anonymity of all our clients
  • Custom essays
  • Writing service

EssayChief can handle your

  • essays, term papers
  • book and movie reports
  • Power Point presentations
  • annotated bibliographies
  • theses, dissertations
  • exam preparations
  • editing and proofreading of your texts
  • academic ghostwriting of any kind

Free essay samples

Browse essays by topic:

Stay with EssayChief! We offer 10% discount to all our return customers. Once you place your order you will receive an email with the password. You can use this password for unlimited period and you can share it with your friends!

Academic ghostwriting

About us

© 2002-2024 EssayChief.com