Do you speak puppetry

Puppetry as a Means of Social Expression

Fida was a student in one of my puppetry classes. She was a devout Muslim, covered her head, and was always in traditional dress. She lived in a very poor Arabic village. During the course of the semester, the members of the class retained a silent distance from her and she from them.

The final project in the class was a sculpted, papier mache hand puppet. When Fida completed her puppet, she jumped up and danced joyously with it. Her puppet�s face was divided; one half was sad, and the other was happy. It had no eyes. I invited her to tell the class something about her puppet. She went to the head of the class, gently cradled her puppet, and sang Arabic lullabies to it. After a few minutes, she turned to the class, and said, �I am a thirty year old, single Arabic woman, and this is the first doll that I have ever had. She pointed to its face and added, �I laugh when I am sad.�

This short encounter prompted the members of the class to ask Fida many questions about herself and her life; she eagerly answered all of the questions. Toward the end of the discussion, one class member told her,�we have been together in the class all semester, and this is the first time that I have gotten to know you.

Fida had been an outsider in the class until that moment. Through her puppet, she found a way to make her world available to the others. Through her puppet, she and the other members of the class attained several layers of identification: shared feminine identity, the experience of having a doll, the experience of having none, and the experience of being or wanting to be a mother and the experience of not being one. Fida had used her puppet to make a social expression.

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