Drama

Drama Study: Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman

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FROM THE PRL / translated work (spanish)  / C20TH / South America / chile

“They must be redeemed, otherwise there is no harmony. But how, how will you redeem them? Is it possible? Can they be redeemed? Can they be redeemed by being avenged?”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
Victor Jara was a beloved Chilean folk singer and activist who supported Chile’s democratic socialist government. After the military coup in 1973, Jara was arrested, tortured, and murdered by the regime. Jara’s murder remained unpunished for decades, highlighting the core question of Death and the Maiden: is true justice possible after state-sanctioned violence?

Introduction

Fans of psychological thrillers, courtroom dramas, and intense themes of revenge and justice are drawn to Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden. Written after the writer’s exile from Chile, the play is set in an unnamed post-dictatorship country, representing Dorfman’s lost home. Having adopted a democratic government, the country faces many challenges in its attempt to return to stability after upheaval. Performed for the first time in London, 1991, critics commended the moral ambiguity of the play and warned audiences about some unsettling scenes: rape and torture are described and discussed in explicit detail.

The plot focuses on married couple Gerardo Escobar and Paulina Salas. As the play opens, Gerardo’s car breaks down at night and he accepts the offer of a passing stranger, a doctor named Roberto Miranda, to help him. Inviting him home and letting him stay the night rather than drive further in the dark, this seemingly trivial incident kickstarts an intense drama involving kidnapping, traumatic flashbacks, and violent confrontation. Paulina, upon hearing the doctor’s voice, suspects that he is in fact a member of the secret police who kidnapped, raped, and tortured her years ago. Taking matters into her own hands, to the horror of her husband, Paulina kidnaps Roberto, ties him up, and confronts him in the house.

Since the play premiered at the Royal Court Upstairs Theatre, it has been revived many times around the world. The theme of torture has gained particular poignancy in a post-9/11 world. Since the US, and many other powerful countries, have participated in the use of torture and human rights abuses to make themselves feel safe, the dilemma raised by Paulina is as relevant as ever: is it justified to use terror to fight terror? And let’s not forget the countries, from Libya to Egypt, to South Africa, to Argentina, to Syria, to Iraq, and more, who have struggled – and still struggle – in the transition to democracy.

IB Student Learner Profile: Thinker

We use critical and creative thinking skills to analyse and take responsible action on complex problems. We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.

Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden demands critical thinking at every turn. Paulina’s decision to take justice into her own hands raises questions of morality over law and truth over coercion. Gerardo’s insistence on due process opens up old wounds between him and his wife that seem impossible to close. The audience are forced to become thinkers as Dorfman leaves central questions – like was Paulina justified? – unresolved. Where there are no easy answers, we must critically engage, analyse, and think about how to achieve justice in a post-dictatorship society for ourselves.

IB Lang and Lit Concept: Identity

Death and the Maiden is fundamentally about identity, both personal and collective. Paulina’s sense of self has been fractured by the torture she experienced, and her actions in the play are her desperate attempt to rebuild her identity beyond victimhood. Roberto’s identity is contested: is he a respected doctor or a sadistic torturer? And on a wider scale, the play reflects a nations efforts to rebuild a national identity after a period of dictatorship, and how this necessitates compromises with individuals, truth, justice, and reconciliation.

1. Good Samaritan

“But there is so much we can do. . . There will be an official report. What happened will be established objectively, so no one will ever be able to deny it. . .”

Paulina and her husband Gerardo are staying at their secluded beach house. Gerardo has a new position, appointed by the President of the newly-democratic country, who wants him to head up a commission investigating human rights’ abuses under the previous dictatorship. Gerardo says he’s holding off on the job until he’s discussed it with Paulina. She’s concerned with the limitations of the commission: the President will only allow Gerardo to investigate crimes that ended with the victim’s death. More, the commission will have no powers of prosecution. Personally, Paulina is frustrated that the commission won’t do anything in cases like hers: over a decade ago, Paulina was kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and raped.

One night, Gerardo is late home; he explains his tire blew out on the road and a passing stranger stopped to help. He invites this ‘Good Samaritan’, a doctor by the name of Roberto Miranda, to the house. By chance, Roberto has heard about the commission on the radio, and heaps praise on Gerardo, telling him his honourable work will heal the wounds of the nation. Paulina, yet to be introduced to their guest, listens aghast from an adjacent room. The doctor’s voice has triggered memories of her forced imprisonment: she’s convinced he’s one of the men who raped her so many years ago. That night, while the doctor and her husband sleep, Paulina decides to take matters into her own hands. She knocks Roberto unconscious, steals his car keys, and ties him to a chair, turning the tables on her former captor – if he’s really who she thinks he is.

Resources

In Dorfman’s Words

“People here are just trying to get on with life, but it is not easy. Just the other day, as I…strolled with my wife through the center of the city, we heard loud drums beating, saw faraway red banners waving in the warm breeze, guessed it was some sort of march to demand the General’s extradition from England to Spain.”

Exorcising Terror, 2002

Learner Portfolio: Practise for Paper 1 (Literature students only)

If you are a Language A: Literature student, at the end of your course you will sit Paper 1: Guided Literary Analysis. This paper contains two previously unseen literary passages. SL students write a guided analysis of one of these passages; HL students write about both passages. The passages could be taken from any of four literary forms: prose, poetry, drama or literary non-fiction. Each of the passages will be from a different literary form.

Here are two passages taken from Death and the Maiden; as this is a play the literary form is ‘drama’. Each passage is accompanied by a guiding question to provide a focus or ‘way in’ to your response. Choose one passage and complete this Learner Portfolio entry in the style of Paper 1: Guided Literary Analysis.

2. Power Reversal

“Let’s see if you can guess why I didn’t get my diploma, I’m pretty sure that it won’t take a colossal effort of the imagination on your part to guess why.”

Just before dawn, Roberto awakes to discover he is tied up and gagged. Paulina greets him with stories from her past that segue into her memories of being imprisoned and tortured by a group of men. She is convinced that Roberto was one of her captors, saying how she’s heard the sound of his voice in her ear every day since her traumatic experience. She mocks him by bringing up small details of things that he said and did at the time. Of course, Roberto denies all involvement, even after she plays a cassette of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ that she found in Roberto’s car. Her torturer played this piece repeatedly during her ordeal; ever since, hearing this piece has made her physically sick.

Gerardo comes in still half asleep – but is shocked awake by the scene he discovers. Paulina brandishes his gun at him to prevent him from interfering with her ‘interrogation’. Aghast, Gerardo moves to untie Roberto and the gun goes off. Gerardo pleads with Paulina to let Roberto go, arguing that he’s unlikely to be who Paulina thinks he is. She insists on her plan: to put Roberto on trial ‘right here’ by herself.

Resources

In Dorfman’s Words

“[a] group appeared, marching slowly and solemnly… the mothers and daughters and wives of the disappeared, the association of relatives of prisoners who had been executed without trial, the movement against torture. These were the women whom I had witnessed for the last twenty or so years, day after day, keeping the flame of memory burning, unwilling to forget their murdered, damaged loved ones, what had been done to those loved ones in some slippery, unspeakable cellar in this same city.”

Exorcising Terror, 2002

Learner Portfolio: physical and emotional scars of trauma

In Act 1 Scene 4, Paulina describes how Death and the Maiden, a string quartet that used to be her favourite piece of music, is now unbearable for her to hear. Because her captor played this piece repeatedly throughout her ordeal, it has become indelibly linked in her mind to her experiences of imprisonment, rape, and torture. But Paulina’s trauma is not just emotional – hearing Death and the Maiden prompts a physical reaction too, making Paulina feel physically sick. Through this reaction, Dorfman explores how trauma resides not just in a person’s memory, but in their bodies too. Because she was blindfolded at the time, Paulina believes her other senses became sharper to compensate, making her sensory experiences (sound, taste, smell, touch) the gateways for trauma to enter and re-enter her body.

Consider how this idea is developed throughout Death and the Maiden. Skim and scan Paulina’s dialogue to see what she reveals about the physical and emotional ways trauma is processed. Create a mind-map, chart, or other piece of work (such as a mini-essay) to present your findings.

3. The Trial Begins

“I want him to confess. I want him to sit in front of that cassette recorder and tell me what he did – not just to me, everything, to everybody…”

As Act 2 begins, Roberto Miranda remains tied up and Paulina takes control of the house. If the courts aren’t going to give her justice, she’s determined to reenact her own. Acting as the prosecution, she puts it to Roberto that his crimes of rape and torture have left her scarred and she demands he confess to what he did to her during the dictatorship. Roberto is afraid yet indignant, insisting on his innocence and denying any involvement. The to-and-fro between Paulina and Roberto leaves the audience guessing: is he guilty or is Paulina projecting her trauma onto a convenient sacrificial lamb?

Caught between his loyalty to his wife and his belief in the legal institutions of the democracy he’s been appointed to defend, Gerardo is forced reluctantly into the role of Roberto’s defence council. He pleads to Paulina to release her captor and let due process take it’s course. But Paulina refuses, arguing that the law will continue to fail victims like her through the amnesty promised to perpetrators of the previous dictatorship’s crimes . She wants one thing – the truth – and will accept no compromise. Eventually. Gerardo is persuaded to collaborate and, using Paulina’s detailed account of what happened to her, he drafts a confession for Roberto to read and sign.

Resources

In Dorfman’s Words

“Chile is a country where something as normal and wondrous as the young delighting in their own energy and merriment is being challenged by a traumatic past that refuses to be buried. A country where we cannot get on with life until the life that was destroyed right here has been acknowledged.”

Exorcising Terror, 2002

Learner Portfolio: How should a country reckon with past atrocities?

In Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman presents a three-character drama that explores one of the most pressing questions for any society emerging from tyranny: How should a country reckon with the atrocities of its past? Each of the central characters (Paulina, Gerardo, and Roberto) embodies a distinct response to this question, and Act 2 is where these positions become most sharply defined.

For your Learner Portfolio, revisit the play and review the dialogue of all three characters. Consider what their words reveal about their beliefs regarding truth, justice, and reconciliation. What position on this question does each character represent? Create a chart / graphic organiser, including a summary of each character’s viewpoint and key quotations, that captures your findings. Then, write a reflective paragraph answering this question: Which viewpoint do you find most compelling and why?

4. Confession

“So someone did terrible things to you and now you’re doing something terrible to me and tomorrow somebody else is going to – on and on and on.”

After almost a full day of being tied up and pressured by Paulina, Roberto finally agrees to confess. The final act opens with Roberto reading the confession Gerardo has prepared for him. His tone is flat as he describes how he was assigned to a torture squad, agreeing to supervise only so that he could help victims by limiting the abuse they were dealt. However, over time, his sympathies were burned away and his own brutality surfaced. Satisfied with what she has heard, Paulina demands he sign… and it is here that ambiguity surfaces once again. Was Roberto confessing the truth, or saying what he thought Paulina wanted to hear to win his freedom?

Resources

In Dorfman’s Words

“One day the blood in the pollen will put me to sleep, the syllables of blood in the pollen will slowly put me to sleep. The compañeros will come, they will say: and this one, what happened to him, he used to be so strong. It’s so simple and so terrible and so me: I was alone like a pond that irrigates the field, a pond that gives water and breathes stars, that no rivers come to, where no children come to swim.”

from There Is No Wind To Ease The Flowers, 2002

Learner Portfolio: Practise for Paper 2

Write this Learner Portfolio in the style of a practice Paper 2 response. You can use one of the prompts below, or another prompt given to you by your teacher. Although Paper 2 requires you to compare-and-contrast two literary works, for the sake of this exercise you could focus only on your response to Death and the Maiden. Choose one of the following prompts, talk with your teacher about how to approach and structure your writing, then complete your portfolio entry (visit this post for more help with Paper 2):

  • Explore the idea of trust in the works you have studied.
  • How important is the ending to a work of literature?
  • It is not always easy to forget and forgive. Illustrate this observation with reference to the literary works you have studied.
  • Explore how women are represented as stronger than men in the works you have studied.

Towards Assessment: Higher Level Essay

Students submit an essay on one non-literary text or a collection of non-literary texts by one same author, or a literary text or work studied during the course. The essay must be 1,200-1,500 words in length. (20 marks).

Once you’ve finished studying Death and the Maiden, and if you are an HL student, you might consider using this text to write your HL Essay. Here are one or two examples of lines of inquiry suitable for this text – but remember to follow your own interests and the direction of your own class discussion to generate your own line of inquiry. It is not appropriate for students to submit responses to an essay question that has been assigned:

  • How does Ariel Dorfman use ambiguity to explore the tension between justice and truth in Death and the Maiden?

Towards Assessment: Individual Oral

Supported by an extract from one non-literary text and one from a literary work (or two literary works if you are following the Literature-only course)students will offer a prepared response of 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions by the teacher, to the following prompt: Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of two of the texts that you have studied. (40 marks)

Death and the Maiden would be an excellent choice of literary work to use to construct your IO. The text neatly aligns with the Field of Inquiry: Power, Politics and Justice through themes of truth vs revenge. However, other approaches could also yield rich fruit: Paulina’s memories of trauma significantly impact her sense of identity, for example. And you might be interested in Dorfman’s depiction of a country that seems superficially civilised, but scratch the surface and you’ll discover the brutality and depravity of humanity lurking beneath the thin veneer. Once you’ve finished studying the play, spend time working with the IB Fields of Inquiry: mind-map the text, come up with ideas for Global Issues, make connections with other Literary Works or Body of Works that you have studied on your course. See if you can make a proposal you might use to write your Individual Oral.

Here are one or two suggestions to get you started, but consider your own programme of study before you make any firm decisions about your own Global Issue that you want to talk about. Whatever you choose, remember a Global Issue must have local relevance, wide impact and be trans-national:

  • Field of Inquiry: Politics, Power and Justice
  • Global Issue: how politics prevents justice
  • Possible Pairings (Lit course: if you are following the Literature-only course, you must pair a text originally written in English with a translated work): Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee; Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick; The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.
  • Possible Pairings (Lang and Lit): Erik Ravelo’s Untouchables photo exhibition; Essays and Articles by George Monbiot;

As the country moves from dictatorship into democracy, the new government must tackle the injustices of the last regime. The President appoints a truth commission, led by Gerardo, to investigate human rights abuses. But, caught between the people’s desire for truth and the army’s desire to protect its own, he places limits on the power of the commission. While Gerardo is willing to accept these limitations in pursuit of a certain form of reconciliation, Paulina is not. This contradiction would form the heart of an effective IO in this field of inquiry.

Death and the Maiden is set in a country where some people enjoy the luxuries of middle class stability: Gerardo and Paulina are able to retreat to their beach house for relaxation, for example. Although the scene is always inside their house, we get clues that some people are affluent, have careers, can take holidays, listen to classical music, and the like. However, from the play’s opening scene we sense that the stability of civilised society is not assured. And Paulina has learned first hand how depraved things can get when people’s baser instincts are given expression (talking about how ‘women are often the first victims when civilisation breaks down’ would be an excellent variation on this Global Issue).

Wider Reading

Categories:Drama

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