Conflicts and Flawed Assumptions in “mistaken Identity”

Floor van Dommelen

Professor Kuhlman

LCS 121-J

Essay on Mistaken Identity

3/10/2017

Conflicts and flawed assumptions in “Mistaken Identity”

It is inevitable that everyone believes in at least a few stereotypes. Even if you are fully against stereotypes; everyone holds some. Even if you assume you don’t stereotype on an average day, you will still hear, see, or read about stereotypes every day and everywhere. Some might be very small; in “Mistaken Identity” Steve assumes everyone in England loves fish and chips; “You must get tired of fish and chips all the time.” (Cooper, 1). On the other hand, stereotyping is a way to put people in boxes; they are inflexible and can have a very large impact on one’s emotions, social life and interactions with others. Diversity is affected by stereotyping; they alter your perceptions of people because some stereotypes are so strong that they are thought of as accepted. In Cooper’s play “Mistaken Identity” the character Steve especially is affected by these “flawed assumptions” while the other character Kali is not pleased by this. “Mistaken Identity” is a play about two contrasting individuals; Steve and Kali. Both Steve and Kali are victimized by stereotypes. Kali might be victimized more than Steve, but she still holds a prejudice about the type of man Steve is. She compares him to all the other men she’s been set up with by her brother as potential husbands. Conflicts between the individual or group versus society are part of the culture we are living in, it could be anything from race, nationality, or religion to disabilities, sexuality, or age. In “Mistaken Identity” the three most present struggles are the conflicts of culture, sexuality, and society.  At the end of the day I believe we all have a little bit of Steve in us and no matter how hard we try we will never be able to get rid of stereotyping in its entirety. However, I do believe you could just start working on your inner Steve; an oblivious and naïve bloke who gets his facts from a movie he has once seen. Conflicts and flawed assumptions can be resolved by trying to understand someone else’s point of view.

        The first conflict we come across is the conflict of culture. This happens to be the biggest conflict in between the lines of “Mistaken Identity”. Steve assumes every Englishman or woman eats fish and chips and with this knowledge he thinks he’ll impress Kali. His foolishness is pretty understandable because the first few sentences they exchange make it obvious that Steve is very nervous, due to the fact that he knows he must ask Kali to marry him in the next 2 hours. This is the one of the first conflicts involving cultural differences; the customs of the cultures they both grew up are anything but similar. Their backgrounds and past experiences are not at all alike. Steve assumes that he knows a lot about Kali’s past, as he has seen two movies about Indian people in his life and he knows “that they [you] all do the “arranged marriage thing”” (Cooper, 1), or when he thinks Diwali is like Hanukkah; “You mean like Hanukkah.” (Cooper, 4). This is very naïve from his part, however, I do see where he is coming from looking at his background. He is 32. He probably has never left America until this semester and is desperate to have a woman in his life who would “have [had] their hand down the small of your back or lean [leaned] into you like it didn’t matter where you ended and they began.” (Cooper, 3). He is very desperate and impatient and everything depends on this date. He tries to impress her by showing off, but what he doesn’t get is that Kali is actually disgusted by her culture. As I said earlier, everyone has a little bit of Steve in themselves so I would’ve probably made the same assumptions. Maybe I wouldn’t have jumped to conclusions and I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me that quickly, but he couldn’t have known she was that averse towards her culture. She doesn’t show that until the end of the play where she explains what the consequences would be if she were to be openly gay in front of her family: “I’d run the risk of not being allowed to see my nieces.” (Cooper, 4). This is a sign of the conflict of culture in between the family members of Kali’s family, especially her and her brother. Her brother still lives by the rules of their culture, while Kali is going against these rules of chiefly arranged marriage. Another conflict of culture is: conflict of language.

        The conflicts of sexuality are very big in our nowadays lives, because it is now more openly discussed than ever. In every state in America same-sex marriage is legal along with 23 other countries. This has been developing since The Netherlands was the first country to legalize in 2001. However, there are a lot of countries that see same-sex marriage or even relationships as a sin. Even in the countries where it is accepted, it is sometimes still regarded as a sin among some religions. This last one is the case for Kali; her relationship with Michele would not be accepted by her family because of their religion. There is a lot of frustration that hides behind her first smile and out of frustration she tells Steve: “I’m gay.” (Cooper, 1). In the first instant, Steve is very confused by this statement, he doesn’t know how to react. Again, I see how he was flabbergasted at first because he is convinced she is heterosexual and looking to get married because why else would her brother set them up? But as he says that “this [This] new information is, well, new, and changes things, I guess.” (Cooper, 3). On the other hand, he could’ve reacted in a more sensible and understanding way, it is a massive secret she is revealing to him. “Why would you tell me you’re a lesbian and not your brother?” (Cooper, 2) Steve wondered. However, in my opinion ‘at the end of the day’ Steve was all Kali needed, not to marry but as an outsider to spill her secret to. All the feelings that came with her being a closeted gay just came out and took an enormous weight off her chest. Steve gets through to her by saying: “This thing where you assume you know what I’m thinking – It’s getting’ old.” (Cooper, 4), this is the first time in the play where Steve has a strong response to anything she says, this changes something in Kali which makes her tell Steve all about Michele and the struggles she has to deal with in everyday life. This really shows a big similarity between Steve and Kali, particularly everything Steve misses about being in a relationship Kali has to hide from the outside world. It also shows that just the exchange of feelings, thoughts, struggles and worries through words comes a long way. It doesn’t only builds trust and understanding in this instance, but I could also come a long way in any other situation or with any other people.

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