Controlled by Men

            In both "Cloud Nine" and "The Crying Game" femininity and the gender of characters play a large part when analysing the narrative. The quote originates from "Cloud Nine", which is said by the character Betty. The female gendered characters relate to this quote at the start of the storyline of both pieces and at the closing of the narrative we see a change and/ or a revelation. .
             Betty and Dil are of a feminine gender but are both trapped in a man's body. Betty is deliberately played by a male actor in act one because her character wants to be a man or more evidently she wants to be what men want her to be, and explains that the male form is that of "man's creation". Betty still expresses her femininity by her words of her duties as a woman, wife, mother and daughter in the Victorian society. Dil is biologically a man in the narrative but is a transvestite. She conveys her femininity by her over feminine decorated room, her over done makeup, and her tight crude clothing.
             Harry and Clive's attitudes attempt to confine women to the limitations of the domestic sphere and male authority. "My wife is all I dreamt a wife should be, And everything she is she owes to me." Like the society it shows, the first act of "Cloud Nine" is male dominated and is firmly structured. Everyone is to play his or her role as society has dictated. Betty knows and respects she has her duties to stay at home to bring up the children but doesn't fully accept this as she"d rather be dangerous. Harry and the adventure of his jungle explorations infatuate Betty but her desire clashes with Harry's idealization that women belong in the home, "I need to go up the rivers and know you are sitting here thinking of me". .
             Even though Betty respects Clive and tries to be what he wants her to be Clive is having an affair with Mrs Saunders. Mrs Saunders is the complete opposite of Betty. She is of a more dominant nature and doesn't fit into the natural structure of the Victorian world.