The Theme of Finding Yourself and Morality in Martin Ritt's Movie Norma Rae

Norma Rae was seen in many different ways by people. In the beginning Norma's qualities were different than those at the end. Norma Rae changes and it is for the better. One of Norma's bad qualities is that she is dependent on men. As for seen with George. He treats he like a hoe and, gives her no respect. He is very abusive towards her, like when they were in the hotel room and he slapped her across the face. Her father treats her as a little girl. He is always in her business, he is always wanting to know where she is going, when she is coming home and who she is seeing. Norma has some good qualities; she is a very hard worker. She works at a textile factory for many hours and then she goes home and cleans and takes care of the house. She is also a very outspoken women. If she doesn't like someone or something they say, she lets them know how she feels about it. Her boss is a major jerk. He doesn't care about their health or feelings. To give an example, when her and mother went to him because her mother couldn't hear, he was not interested, and he just brushed them off.

Norma is a strong woman, but people just take advantage of her. Changes. Norma Rae definitely went through many changes. Ruben I think was her first change. Ruben was the young man from the union. I think she made her first change when he told her "your too smart for what's happing to you." I believe this is when she gave her self more respect. Ruben got her to also join the union. She than starts getting relay involved in it and during all this she meets a man named sonny. Sonny and her become very close and fall in love and end up marring. She persuades her other co-workers to also join the union. One day her father dies. This was a major change in Normas life. She loved her father dearly. If things couldn't get better, she is fired from her job. Norma was outraged by this, and caused a scene. She stood on a machine and held up a sign that read "union." Following, where her co-workers, they all shut down their machines and quite working. She was then put in jail for this. This was a total embarrassment to her and her family. She was very angry at herself. She called Ruben to come bail her out. The first thing she did when she got home was wake up her kids. She knew there was going to be negative talk about her in the town. She sat down with her children and told them who their real fathers where. She did not want them to find out by people gossiping. One final change came. The union won. They had did it, they won. Everyone was so happy they were finally going to have good, decent working conditions. Norma's qualities have had such a turn around. She is so much stronger. She is a very faithful woman; like she had many opportunities to cheat on Sonny with Ruben, but she never did. She was very confident, as she believed in Ruben and the union. She had so much determination to get the union in the factory. She had tremendous courage to just put her whole life on the line and go along with the union. I think this whole thing made her such an independent woman; and made her such a better person. My opinion of the movie was it was a great movie. It made me thank there is a union, so I can have good, fair working conditions. This movie was very true, and that is what really happened. I love Norma, I think she is such a strong person. I know she made some bad choices, but everyone does. I think she is an all around good person, and she helped change many lives. Norma Rae is a hard working woman.