The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: George Ryga
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The late 1960’s
- Setting: A city
- Genres: Social realism, Drama
- Subjects: Justice, 1960’s, United States or Americans, Memory, Racism, Prejudices or antipathies, Trials, Native Americans or American Indians, City life, Imagination
- Locales: United States
Characters Discussed
Rita Joe, a simple, romantic young American Indian woman. She moves to the city to escape the stagnation of life on her reservation, but things go wrong: She loses her job and is arrested repeatedly for a variety of offenses, such as vagrancy and prostitution. At the mercy both of a legal system she does not understand and of people who view her as inhuman, Rita ends up serving time in prison. Her dreams of a good life conflict with memories of a life that was simpler but one that was dominated by white people’s ideas about religion and education. Figures...
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