The Role of Class in La Ronde & All Quiet in Western Front

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The Role of Class in La Ronde & All Quiet in Western Front
Social rankings and hierarchy have always existed to create boundaries between people and their perceived acceptable interactions. Social classes define sub-cultural behaviors and outline the roles individuals are supposed to play for an efficient society. According to Davis & Moore (1993), society requires a variety of occupational roles. One's social class and background equip a person with the skills and attitudes desirable for their occupational function. A lot of unpleasant work is to be done in any society, and someone must be persuaded to do it. That forms the most basic line of differentiating the classes that exist in that particular society. 'The lowly,' and the 'highly regarded. This essay response looks at the role class plays in relation to two literary works La Ronde and All Quiet in the Western Front.
La Ronde is the French name given to Arthur Schnitzler's play originally in Germain's name 'Reigen.' It is a controversial play with thought-provoking sexual themes. It puts aspects of sexual morality and social class and status under scrutiny. In the play, the characters are going through their day to day with successive sexual encounters with partners stretched across all levels in society. There is The Whore and the Soldier, the parlor maid, the young gentleman, the young wife, the husband, the little miss, the poet, the actress, the count, and the whore. Unbeknownst to them all, they are all linked, and the ply does a good job of portraying how primal sexual contact transgresses all class and social boundaries.
Schnitzler's La Ronde quite successfully erased that line when it came to sexual encounters among the characters. It is quite clear that characters are not just choosing their partners from their social classes. Because they have to keep up appearances for the general community, they have their sexual partners in their social classes. Like the young wife has a husband, the soldier is with the parlor maid, et al. However, there is an excellent deviation from these 'acceptable' interactions when the gentleman engages with the maid, the husband with the little miss count with the whore.
Conventionally, these sexual engagements outside the respective characters outside their social classes would be frowned upon. It is no wonder that they are to be kept secret. The irony is that the characters still want to continue with their promiscuity with whomever they choose to regardless of their social ranking; it just should not come to light! In many ways, despite having been set in the 1890s, it is very reminiscent of modern-day sexual encounters and disregard of societal norms regarding social interactions.
Besides the point of sexual morality, society will pay much attention to who a person was sexually immoral with and exert its judgment regarding social ranking. For instance, even as depicted in the play, one cannot help but be less harsh in thought when the young wife is involved with the gentleman because of the perception of them being socially ranking. However, in the husband and the little miss, for example, or the count and the whore, it almost feels degra...