One of the most interesting things I find in Death and the Maiden
is how Paulina is making not just the doctor confess his crimes, but also makes
her husband confess to his transgressions in order for her to have catharsis.
Both of these men have hurt her, although in greatly different ways and she
feels the need to have a confession from both of them before she is able to
move on with her life. She tells her husband she can’t move on until he tells
her about the other woman and she tells Roberto that she is unable to live her
life while he is unrepentant. Although it does not start as a quest to make her
husband confess, as she searches for the truth from the doctor, she realizes
she needs to know all the truths, not just what Roberto can tell her.
The other thing I find interesting is how both Gerardo and
Roberto don’t wish to confess. Even after being caught in a lie by Paulina he
still refuses to admit to his wrongdoings, and Gerardo, although his
wrongdoings were already known, tries to convince Paulina to give up her
questioning of him. Both men are reluctant to let Paulina in to their personal
world of confession.
These are great findings. They reminded me of the part where Gerardo says to Roberto whilst trying to convince him to indulge his wife: "That's what a real man does, doesn't he. Real macho men blow people's brains out and f__s women when they're tied up on cots. Not like me. I'm a stupid, yellow, soft f____t because I defend the son of a b___h who s_____d my wife and destroyed her life." I think that whether he meant to or not, Gerardo was really getting to the truth of one of the main issues in the play. We don't know if Paulina killed Roberto or not, for he still exists - at least in her mind - because she is still shackled to Gerardo. He is the real destructive force in her life, despite the harm the doctor caused her, because Gerardo never let her wounds heal. Although usually well-meaning, he never allowed her the proper confession that might have salvaged her soul, and his infidelity led to both mistrust and sexual inadequacy. If his love had been worthwhile, in other words, Paulina might have succeeded in recovering from trauma as he had always wished, and yet it seems as though Gerardo's main objective in setting Paulina straight is to maintain his own status as a member of the Commission.
ReplyDeleteI also saw there was more to the title of the play than simply the Schubert motif, and this relates to sexuality within the text. Death and the Maiden is itself a motif within Renaissance art, representing woman's dance with fatality and the eroticism that implies. This can be interpreted solely on the fact that the victim of abuse who toys with death is not a man, who could just as well have been raped by the doctor, but a woman - this might suggest a tendency for women to express beliefs and desires such as Paulina's. Even more specifically, Paulina's sexual frustration stems from her memories of torture, which are most vivid during coitus. Obviously, this can be taken at face-value as a sign that her paranoia has indeed invaded all aspects of her life, or that she associates any sort of physical intimacy with rape; but it could also represent one's sexual connection to death or near-death. But like everything else in the play, this is only inferred and the reader is responsible for drawing his/her own conclusions.