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?
I believe that Ensler wants her audience to feel some sort of emotion in order to bring attention to the issues at hand. She wants people to become uncomfortable, and she also wants them to relate to the monologues. She wants people to feel anger and happiness and relief and anxiety. When people feel something, they are more likely to remember what happened and remember what the message was.
To read the Vagina Monologues without a reaction would be a waste of a book. No one writes a novel or play without the intention of making people react. The Vagina Monologues is a book that pushes people farther than other pieces, that's for sure, but all written work, besides maybe certain text books, are supposed to cause the reader to reflect and think about what was just read.
The monologue that pushed me the farthest out of my comfort zone was probably "The woman who loved to make vaginas happy". This particular monologue went so in depth with the language of getting a woman off, that i almost had to stop reading it. I didn't know how to take it, it was extremely vivid and it made me extremely uncomfortable.
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