Social drama can take many forms, but for the most part the purpose of social drama, form the simplest social interaction that attempts to persuade another individual to think more like you (Gilbert 215) to a social, civic or political struggle that plays out in the ever evolving hunger strike, be it individual or mass (Russell 73-93). We as individuals make daily decisions, mostly without thought with regard to what social dramas we will or will not engage in, during our day, our month or our year. As Gilbert points out, we don't always make the best decisions about these self imposed social dramas but then we also cannot see the future and things might not play out the way we imagine them to (Gilbert 223-233). In other words, we have grand plans but our expectations for the future are frequently based on fallacies and assumptions.
             The thing that makes extreme social drama, such as a hunger strike so unique in its character is not the personal sacrifice, at all, but the goals, good or bad that drive them because as Gilbert so eloquently states; "...ideas can flourish if they preserve the social systems that allow them to be transmitted. Because individuals don't usually feel that it is their personal duty to preserve social systems, these ideas must disguise themselves as prescriptions for individual happiness" (Gilbert 233). Gilbert is speaking of the manner in which fallacies are transmitted from one generation to the next, to support a social system that only incidentally supports the individual, and in many ways only by trickery. The point of connection between this thought and the amazing and descriptive history of the hunger strike as a social theatrical is that in the cases where a cause is secondary to self, for the most part the intentions of the individual are to do just that support a social system that is better attuned to the individual, rather than one that lies to continue to oppress the individual.
             In one tell...