The setting of the play is set in a dictatorship, where Paulina Salas is a oppressed woman who has been blindfolded and tortured by her captors. She particularly remembers a doctor that plays Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" as he rapes her. Several years later, the military regime soon shifts to a democracy, and Paulina is now a married woman living with her lawyer husband, Gerardo, in a countryside home. After work, Gerardo brings home a man named Dr. Roberto Miranda, who Paulina recognizes as her rapist through his voice. She takes him captive and tries to extract a confession out of him. Gerardo tries to defend Roberto by formulating a confession in order to calm Paulina down. In the end, we are left hanging as to whether Roberto is the actual rapist and whether Paulina is correct or insane.
The theme of torture and power is prevalent throughout the play. We see that even after so many years, the torture and rape she experienced still keeps her paranoid: the rapist doctor still holds power over her through the memories. The placid Schubert piece that was supposed to help her be calm was instead used as an agent of pain that only helps her remember the horrid memories of her rape. Her blindfold was what the doctor used to hold power over her as an agent of pain; he can see her, but she can't see him.
The blindfold is also what causes the ambiguity of the plot: because of the blindfold, Paulina couldn't see who her rapist was, and therefore we cannot count her as a reliable witness to her torture. She did recognize the voice of her rapist. However, we cannot be sure whether or not her sense of world and self has been destroyed by the torture and she has become psychotic. What is intriguing is that even the genre of this work, a play, lends to the theme of ambiguity. We cannot get into the minds of the characters because of the impersonal aspect of the play, and therefore we do not know which character to side with. In the end, the ambiguity of the play can also torture the reader, and the withheld information can hold power of us as well.
Great overall summary - the comparison between Paulina, Gerardo, Dr.Miranda and the dictatorship is a very crucial one, and proves to be quite significant. Very good analysis of the blindfold; it does indeed play quite a role in the play, being what keeps Paulina's sanity questionable to the readers. Since we don't know if Dr.Miranda really is Paulina's rapist or not (due to the blindfold), we cannot be certain that she has the right person. Also, the ambiguity in the end includes the uncertainty of whether or not Dr.Miranda was indeed killed. The movie aside, the play ends with a figure of Dr.Miranda preparing to watch the same concert as Paulina and Gerardo; however, she does not see him, nor does he give any signs of human interaction. This leaves us hanging with the question of whether or not this Dr.Miranda is a ghost.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't think Paulina could ever rid herself of Dr. Miranda. The fact that he reentered her life made her realize she had to take action, and since then I don't think she will be the same person. Similar to how in "The Wall" Pablo claims he will never be the same, now that he has reached an extreme point of life so close to death, Paulina will never be the same having gotten so close to justice and not receiving it fully. Maybe this provides a bit of insight into what it's like to be the torturer. Although Paulina was at once the victim, when she becomes the torturer she loses her sense of world (in relation to Scarry). Even when she took action against him to get a confession she didn't feel justified, and I think the ending implies that she will always be haunted by Dr. Miranda.
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