Author's Note
Hello, Readers!
Here is a piece of literary response of the play entitled 'Gut Girls' by Sarah Daniels that I made for Drama class. The play talks about the victorian girls who worked in the animal gutting shed. Their job wasn't quite a desirable one since they had to work with skirts, taking out animal livers and intestines and had half of their ankle sunken in animal blood. For me, this play is an interesting work of literature since it highlights the struggle of victorian women, social class conflicts and gender inequalities.
I decided to pick the topic about profanity spoken by these five, brave girls. Through analyzing their language, I could infer some invisible message that lies behind the drama. In addition, this article is not written to justify any personal accounts of using profanities. It is only written for the purpose of literature analysis and academic research. I also hope that this writing can help some of you who are studying about the victorian era or those who wants to know more about english history. Enjoy reading!
- Deborah K.
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THE USE OF PROFANITIES
IN SARAH DANIEL'S GUT GIRLS
Profanities—or swear words—are used to express feelings and emotions of a person. Profanities are also widely used in famous literature works such as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Ralph Elison’s Invisible Man, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and many more. One may wonder what is the purpose of using profanities. According to Timothy Jay, a psychologist conducting research about profanity during his career at Masachusett University of Liberal Arts, there are two major reasons why people swear. First, it is to release or express emotions. Second, it communicates feelings effectively when other words are unable to. In Sarah Daniel’s play Gut Girls, profanities do not only carry out the functions as stated by Timothy Jay previously, but also imply a deeper meaning behind the text itself. The purpose of profanities spoken by the Gut Girls is to communicate their dislike towards the oppressing higher class, to counter the Victorian idealism of how a woman should be and to demonstrate that women have the rights to express themselves openly.
First, one of the Gut Girls’ use of profanity is to describe their hatred towards superior people who treated them dreadfully. Generally, the word ‘arse’ is associated to people who have the “whole world revolving around them” and “step on” other inferiors, as coarsely stated by Urban Dictionary. The word was mentioned three times in the play. The first one was when Ellen referred her master’s son—who threw his shoes at her—as an ‘arsehole’. The second time was when Polly pretended that she is a foreman while waiting for the tea to be brought by Annie and Kate. She expressed that the the working class could “kiss her arse”. The word ‘arse’ in this context is associated with superiority—since the foreman’s work belongs to the upper working class such as Harry. The third one was when Annie criticized her new employers that locked her up every night. She described that their “arses squeak” when they walked. All of the above are significant implications that convey the characters’ perspective on oppressing, superior classes.
Second, the Gut Girls’ use of profanity is countering the Victorian ideas of how a woman should be. In the text, swear words such as bloody, arse, fucking, etc. appeared 23 times—and all of them came from the mouths of the five girls (see table 1. 0 on the last page).
It is a great contrast with the era’s perception of how women should act and behave.
Women were associated with house, child-nursing and chores, while men were associated with the outside world, money and politics. The society was expecting women of graceful manners and accomplishments. However, in the play, these girls did not display the desired image of the Victorian women. In fact, Lady Helena considered them as “street urchins” when they blasphemed, cursed and swore in the club (Act II, Scene Five). She ordered the girls to leave if they performed those actions again. Her words clearly represented what the Victorian society accepts or rejects.
Third, the Gut Girls’ use of profanity shows that women have the rights to express themselves openly. Maggie, for instance, is the character that cursed the most. She cursed 11 times in the play, which is a lot compared to the other girls who only cursed between 2-4 times. Averagely, Britons swear 14 times a day based on the survey conducted by Telegraph.co.uk in 2009, and 90 per cent of the respondents were men. Maggie swore in the gutting shed, in Len’s pub, in the Music Hall, in Lady Helena’s club and drawing room, and in her own house.
She nearly used profanity everywhere, almost reaching the average frequency of a British man’s daily basis of swearing.
In addition, Maggie often selected the word bloody to openly express her disagreement or sentiment towards something although it is regarded as unprintable after the mid 18th century according to Oxford Dictionary.From this information, we can infer that the Gut Girls are unconsciously claiming that women have the same rights as men to express themselves in public.
Finally, it can be concluded that the use of profanities in Sarah Daniel’s Gut Girls plays several important roles in the drama. By tracing the appearances and choices of profanities used, one may analyze the meaning behind the text itself. Therefore, the existence of profanity spoken by the Gut Girls fits the play into the greater picture of social class conflicts and gender equality struggles.
References
Daniels, Sarah. Gut Girls. Methuen Drama, 1989.
Steinmetz, Katy. “Swearing Is Scientifically Proven to Help You *%$!ing Deal” Time 15 December 2016:-. http://time.com/4602680/profanity-research-why-we-swear/. Web. 15 March 2016.
Hicken, Jackie. “25 Classic Novels in Libraries, Schools That Have Been Banned or Challenged” Deseret News 28 September 2015:-. https://www.deseretnews.com/top/3166/0/25-classic-novels-in-libraries-schools-that-have-been-banned-or-challenged.html. Web. 15 March 2018.
Swaine, Jon. “Britons ‘Swear 14 Times a Day on Average’” The Telegraph 16 January 2009:-. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4268304/Britons-swear-14-times-a-day-on-average.html. Web. 15 March 2018.
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