vagina monologues post 2

Audience reaction is crucial to Ensler’s overall project. Why? Why won’t she allow us to simply read without having a reaction, whether positive or negative? Why do you think she wants to push us out of our comfort zones? Which monologues resonate most strongly (positively or negatively) with you and why?

Ensler loves the reactions to her monologues. Ensler wrote the “Vagina Monologues” as a screenplay originally. If we read this piece of work just to read it we would get nothing out of it. I feel as though every writer should write with the purpose of getting a reaction out of their readers. By having a reaction to the piece of writing it not only gives the audience entertainment, but it also makes the reader stop to think about what they are reading. Ensler kept me captivated throughout the monologues because it never got boring. By being entertained I was able to think about the pieces more and to form analyses on it.

Ensler constantly put the audience out of their comfort zone. I feel like she wanted us to become uncomfortable because that is the whole point of the monologues. In “The vagina workshop” the main character was uncomfortable when she first went. The main character didn’t understand how all of these women could draw all of these creative pictures of their vagina, and she also couldn’t figure out how to find her clitoris. The teacher of the workshop told her “she told me my clitoris was not something could lose. It was me, the essence of me.” In this monologue she was very uncomfortable with herself but the more she was pushed out of her comfort level, the more she embraced the essence of herself.

The monologue that stuck out to me was “hair.” The story is not just about a women’s husband wanting to shave her vagina, and cheating on her as a result of not shaving. To me this monologue was about doing what makes you happy. The message I got from this monologue is to do what you want and to not give in to anyone one else. The women gave in and let her husband shave her vagina because she thought he would become loyal. The husband never became loyal. This story made me realize that you should do what you feel comfortable with because in the end you are the only one that needs to be happy with yourself. This story gave me a negative, but truthful outlook on society.