Term Paper on “Death and The Maiden” By Ariel Dorfman
Introduction
Following Chile’s 1973 revolution, Ariel Dorfman fled from his native
homeland and settled in the U.S. He is lately a Research Professor of
Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University in North Carolina.
He has written many fictions and non-fiction works, as well as plays that
have been interpreted into more than 20 languages. Dorfman asserts that
people forget what was done to Chileans. Everyone wants to forget the
repression and the violence. On the contrary, Ariel Dorfman wants to give it
no burial place. That's why ‘Death and The Maiden’ was a play that depicted
everything. Dorfman has created a smart plot that's thought provoking far
beyond its mere shrewdness.
The issues of deprivation of independence, human rights violation, and an
individual's civil liberties are pivotal to ‘Death and the Maiden’. With the
terrorist war in Afghanistan and the crisis in the Middle East, not a day
goes by that we are not challenged with these problems. ‘Death and the
Maiden’ simply helps to put a human face on issues that can oftentimes
prevail as a reflective proposition. “I found the characters trying to
figure out the sort of questions that so many Chileans were asking
themselves privately, but that hardly anyone seemed interested in posing in
public. How can those who tortured and those who were tortured coexist in
the same land? . . . And how do you reach the truth if lying has become a
habit”. (vcu.edu)
Memory is a constant fixation for Ariel Dorfman. He deal often with people
who are fighting against those who would exterminate others, who would
forget them, disregard them, overlook them, erase them from the earth. The
exceptional cases are a woman who is tormented in ‘Death and the Maiden’. In
‘Death and the Maiden’, the human rights abuse is on stage. It's a windy,
stormy night somewhere in South America after the stumble of the despotism.
Lightning flash, thunder boom, and rain comes down in sheets. This
atmosphere so carefully constructed is by far the most remarkable feature.
In fact, a fair impression is that too much effort went into this presence
of the production, leaving little over for such minor details as plotting
and acting.
The premise, which also formed the setting for the Ariel Dorfman’s play upon
which this film is based, is a firm one, laden with capacity for a great
dramatic thriller, a potential that is never fulfilled in the film. The
story revolves around Paulina and her husband Gerardo, a couple living in an
isolated house on an undefined South American country's coastline. Both are
former radical reformers for democracy. Gerardo was the editor of an
undercover newspaper, while Paulina was a dispatcher who was raped and
tormented for preserving her identity. ‘Death and the Maiden’ is one of the
few movies that have created a big impression on everyone. The knowledge
that the movie is about Chili that only makes it more pragmatic and openly
moving. The tension is built up slowly right until the turning point at the
end of the movie. Wheter Dr. Miranda has done what Paulina charge him of
remains unknown until the end of the movie. The film's lasting impression is
the ensuing dance between the victim and her assumed oppressor. Dr Miranda
is a pendulum that he is in need of a massive drive. Gonzalez needs to show
more of the victim at the onset and more evident evil at the end.
This is one of those extraordinary plays, which seems to hold the beat of
the century. It is at once an account of human savageness, a psychological
fiction, and an argument about justice and vengeance. Intelligently it
raises complex points within a thriller that is full of action. A play that
audience will carry out of the theatre and into their lives.
Works Cited
Opening of DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, Play by Ariel Dorfman, November 28, 2001,
http://www.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/deathmaidenex.html
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