AISG Student Study Guide of Death and the Maiden

Language & Literature —HL

Mr. Webster

April 2014

Topic 1: The Context of Composition

  • Kristin Ali, Jeremy Lam, Jung Min Cho, David Won, Ivan Lo, Sabrina Pu & Momoi Suda

Topic 2: The Context of Interpretation

  • Darren Tirto, Christie Zheng, Jackline Raggi, Alex Zhou, Ashley Kim & James Guo

Topic 3: Drama and its conventions

  • Christine Yang, Jacob Curry, Hee Chul Byun, Keisha Burns, Mickey Ting & Clarence Lee

Topic 4: The Setting of the Story as Revealed in the Play

  • Connie Li, Tony Leung, Joong Hoon Lee, Patrick Chang, Diana Seo & Daniel Kim

Topic 5: Themes

  • Jameson MacPhie, Tammy Hong, Crystal Justason, George Sawamura, Halin Cho, Emily Tai & Justin Tan

Topic 6: Characters

  • James Fan, Nidhi Bhasin, Stephanie Park, Vikas Sharma, Martin Chou & Tien Tien

Topic 7: The Most Important Conflicts in the Book

  • Victoria Gonzalez, Eric Lu, Alice Cha, Shu-yu Hsiao, Kevin Kim, Jeffery Kim

Topic 8: Tone and Mood

  • Kirk Cheng, Jie Yi Lim,Kaylina McKelvey, Michael Woldemariam, Hugo Setyadji & Mano Lee

Topic 9: Stylistic Features

  • Chris Zhang, Caleb Sng, Kayla Mohr, Karthik Padmanabhan, YeaSeul Park, Christy Choi, Lion Lee, Clark Lee & So Hee Park

The Context of Composition

Students: Kristin Ali, Jeremy Lam, Jung Min Cho, David Won, Ivan Lo, Sabrina Pu & Momoi Suda

Author’sBiography:

Ariel Dofrman was born on May 6, 1942 as Vladimir Ariel Dorfman. His family moved to the United States shortly after his birth then eventually returned to Chile, settling in 1954. Dorfman is an alumni as well as a professor of the University of Chile. The country exiled him in 1973 after the Chilean military coup. He splits his time between Santiago and the States since 1985, and has been teaching at Duke University since 1990.

He is known as one of the greatest living Latin America novelists and has been dubbed "The Literary Grand Master". He has had his books translated in over 40 languages as well as received many international prizes. Death and the Maiden was his most famous play and was performed worldwide. A handful of Dorfman's work has been written about the horrors of tyranny as well as the experiences of exile, stemming from his background with Chile.

Ariel Dorfman is known for his works relating to Chile. Because he was exiled from Chile in 1973, when Augusto Pinochet took control of the country, he has had a great deal of inspiration from this event. In Death and the Maiden, Dorfman tells the story in an extremely realistic way, which is different from his usual allegorical approach. He portrays the harsh truths of the various struggle people had to deal with as the country was transitioning into a democracy. Ariel Dorfman is also known to give a voice to the people who have no say in society in real life. In Death and the Maiden he does this with Paulina. She is given a voice to stand up for herself and take revenge on a man whom she believes tortured her 15 years in the past. In reality, something like this would not have happened but because Dorfman gives that voice to a woman it gives off a very powerful message and reveals the true pain that women had to go through.

Historical/ Cultural/ Social Context

  • Augusto Pinochet took control during a coup on September 11, 1973

(also called 1st 9/11)

  • Chile under the rule of Augusto Pinochet lasted from 1973-1988
  • Before the coup, the country was facing an economic crisis
  • Secret police called DINA created (Directorate of National Intelligence), outside the country, DINA spied on Chileans living abroad
  • New constitution came into effect where Pinochet was to remain in rule for 8 more years
  • He was dubbed "Senator for Life"
  • He was to remain in control of the military even after his rule
  • Lots of people arrested and tortured for information by the secret police
  • Around 3197 people were killed, 29,000 tortured
  • Torture methods: Parrilla-attached electrical equipment to sensitive parts of the body/ most violent of them all: pushing pregnant women
  • Many people tortured in National Stadium
  • On 1990, Augusto Pinochet stepped down, but still had control of the military, meaning he could attempt another coup
  • Democracy restored on 1990

Authorial intent

  • Authorial intent refers to an author's intent as it is encoded in his or her work.
  • Dorfman tried to portray Chile’s military dictatorship through his work
  • To let the audience reflect on the society
  • To inform more people about what happened and acknowledge events that happened
  • Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist
  • Works at Duke University as a professor of lit and Latin American Studies.
  • He is an political activist for Latin American countries such as Chile, which left behind the Pinochet dictatorship and talks about how the countries are coping with it
  • He talks a lot about revenge and touches on political issues about betrayals, corruption, humanity etc.
  • He believes writing is a way to heal politics and through understanding his text the readers can understand the different and inner side of humans.
  • A lot of his themes focus mainly on Chile and heincorporates a lot of Chilean political issues and events within his text
  • As a male writer, he speaks up for females in many of his texts.
  • Chilean people did not like the play because it was too authentic

Literary Influence

Harold Pinter

  • Dorfman claimed that it was Pinter who unlocked a world he had never seen
  • His works denounce politics directly, which was provocative at the time
  • Revealed the many gradations and degradations of power with a starkness Tennessee had not noticed before in other authors who were supposedly dedicated to examining or denouncing contingent politics
  • "it is in language where the other parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates"
  • Pinter was able to tell the stories of the neglected narratives, respecting the uncertainty of those existences on the rim of extinction, mercilessly stripping the masks forged out of the lives we made for ourselves and yet also be gentle, oh so tender, with these victims of their own delusion
  • Pinter taught Dorfman about stagecraft and character, cruelty and subtlety and tenderness
  • Dorfman followed Pinter's aesthetics and was influenced by his works
  • Depiction of the primal scenes of betrayal that could be transpiring anywhere on our planet, embodiments of a vast and disquieting landscape of dread, the precarious condition inhabited by most of contemporary humanity

Julio Cortázar

•According to Dorfman, Cortázar has often been characterized as an "escapist" and that his won reading may be more politicized than the norm

•Political precisely because he does not feel compelled to limit himself to narrating Latin American politics

•Dorfman is drawn to Cortazar's construction of stories in which "people are shut up in incredibly narrow worlds"

•Revealed the hybrid nature of Latin American identity and represented the conflict and synergy between European and Native American culture sources

•Understands the colloquial, the way in which he understands fantasy, and the way in which he dares to experiment, yet he creates stories in which emotion and intellect are wedded

•Dorfman is able to subvert and renovate the literary forms with which he works

Literary Trends and Movements

•Dorfman's explorations of violence and language and in his rejection of realism

•Both Pinter and Cortázar refuse the literary style of realism, considering it to be a form that is decidedly unreal and that tends to distort and distract from reality

•Both sense that language has hidden layers of meaning but that is equally incapable of truly expressing that which it hopes to describe, that there is always something inexpressible about existence

•In both Pinter and Cortázar confinement leads to conflict and violence

•Postmodern literature - post war

The Context of Interpretation

Students: Darren Tirto, Christie Zheng, Jackline Raggi, Alex Zhou, Ashley Kim & James Guo

The stage direction of theDeath and the Maidenstates that it is "a country that is probably Chile but could be any country that has given itself a democratic government just after a long period of dictatorship." (Cast of Characters)

Chilean militant Salvador Allende became the president in 1970. However, on September 11th, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet planned a coup d’état. President Salvador Allende committed suicide, and his supporters were killed. Then, General Augusto Pinochet led the junta, and became the dictator of Chile.When the play was written, Augusto Pinochet was still in command of the armed forces, still able to threaten another coup if people became unruly or, more specifically, if attempts were made to punish the human rights violations of the outgoing regime.

In 1990, the first president of Chile was elected after Chile was restored to a democracy. Patricio Aylwin was the elected president, and he created a commission called the Rettig Commission, that would investigate the crimes of the dictatorship that had ended in death or its presumption. But it would "neither name the perpetrators nor judge them." (pg 72-Afterword) Through the context of living through Pinochet's regime, Ariel Dorfman heavily relies on historical biographical context in his play, Death and the Maiden. Dorfman, who returned to Chile after the end of Pinochet's dictatorship, encountered many Chileans wondering about the things that happened during the dictatorship but were afraid to speak up. He pondered over how a country that was in a new, democratic era, trying to let go of it's oppressive past, had a fear to speak freely. All this observation culminated into his play Death and the Maiden, of which he had been devising for a long time. This historical context had led him to the creation of 3 characters, of which he had used to represent different populations;furthermore, he had taken the idea of the struggle between revealing the truth and democratic stability towards resolving the issues of the country, heavily into his play.

During that time, the commission only investigated the crimes that ended in death. There were many instances in which people were secretly abducted by the government, and they couldn't do anything about it, which made it very hard for people to seek justice.Supporters of Augusto Pinochet were able to occupy powerful seats, such as the senate and the town councils. This meant that although Chile transited to democracy, it was uneasy and Augusto Pinochet was able to control armed forces, and threaten other coups.

  • Chilean culture is mixture of Spanish and groups of indigenous people. (National language is Spanish).
  • Roman Catholic is the common religion.
  • Modernization allowed development.

Social Literary Criticism intends to analyze how ruling majority in literature oppress minority. In Death and the Maiden, Paulina represents political victims who survive after the dictatorship. Since the democratic government still faces remaining military power of Pinochet, it can only carry investigations of crimes resulting in death. In this sense, victims like Paulina are from the minority group of the play, fighting against the legacy power of Pinochet in the seeking of justice. Through the lenses of social literary criticism, audiences will be able to understand why even though the democratic government has taken over, the process of healing the country is still limited. Throughout the play, the atmosphere of gloominess and tension resembles the conflict ongoing in the country, and while readers interpret this play using social literary criticism, they will better realize the position Gerardo takes as the middleman trying to alleviate the conflict between the ruling military power and the minority survivors.

Even though Augusto Pinochet wasn't the dictator anymore, he was still in command of the armed forces, and he secretly imprisoned and tortured thousands of Chileans.

  • Chile has a relatively young population.
  • Both women and men are equal, and they are equally influential. (Women gained full election right in 1949)
  • Middle and upper class women are better educated.
  • Women participation in labor market increased
  • Certain class conflicts still exist.

Although Death and the Maiden primarily focuses on justice and truth, due to different context of interpretation, it is still valid for readers to read this play through the lenses of feminist literary criticism. This criticism analyzes plays' portrayals of female characters and accentuates bias towards these characters. In Death and the Maiden, Paulina, as the main and only female character, had gone through torture and rape under the rule of Pinochet, as apolitical victim. Since then, she has never recovered from the horrifying memory and is described as"locked" in the basement where she was tortured for the past 15 years. The significance that the main victim in this play is a female is that the contrast between a common woman and Paulina exaggerates the tormenting power of political dictatorship. While woman is commonly portrayed as fragile, weak and the minority of the society, the fact that Paulina transforms to be a almost cold-blooded murderer with evil thoughts of torturing and killing her suspected criminal, Doctor Roberto, demonstrates clearly to the audience the theme of finding justice and truth. However, this criticism is most likely to be used by modern audiences because of the rising female power in current society.

Depending on readers, there can be different conclusions. A long period of dictatorship can hardly be found in today's world; advances in technologies open up people's mind decades ago. Although a huge portion of the world today operates under a system of democracy, they usually did not form directly from a dictatorship. Since then, several generations have passed and this work is hardly relevant to modern audiences.

Historically, the setting of the book is in the twentieth century where sexism remains a serious issue. Yet again with evolution in mind settings the equilibrium of gender right gradually shifts to the women side. Regionally, in today's life, there are still gender discriminations. Furthermore, the legacy set of mind brought about by the previous generations can also cause resonance in readers when they read about this.

Drama and its Conventions

Students: Christine Yang, Jacob Curry, Hee Chul Byun, Keisha Burns, Mickey Ting & Clarence Lee

DEFINING DRAMA

Drama can be defined as the portrayal of a plot or story as in other types of literature, with the main distinction being that drama is meant to involve audience interaction (visible in plays through asides, soliloquies, monologues, etc.). While this particular definition of drama is broader and fits all kinds of plays, the word drama has also come to mean a specific type of play that does not fit the common divisions of comedy and tragedy. In Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden we see the use of conventions that help place the work as a drama, as it contains the plot structure and common movement identified as belonging to 'drama'.

DRAMATIC STRUCTURE

Acts and Scenes

A drama is composed of multiple acts, and within each act, the plot can be broken down further into scenes. Death and the Maiden follows a typical three-act-structure that is quite common in dramatic writing in the 19th and 20th century. The plot of Death and the Maiden can be analyzed within each act. Act 1 introduces the three main characters as well as the social setting of the drama, which is a society that is still haunted by the shadow of the previous dictatorship. In terms of plot, it is the exposition of the story. Act 2 builds onto the expositions and starts creating complications that will eventually lead up to the climax in Act 3. Act 3 contains both the climax and resolution of Death and the Maiden, which conforms to the traditional structure of a three-act drama/play.

Number of Characters

This play has a total of three characters, Paulina Salas, Gerardo Escobar and Roberto Miranda. With the story centered around ambiguity of the guilt of Doctor Miranda, the fact that the play only has three characters is quite effective, as it allows the audience to focus in on these three characters and try really hard to figure out whether Doctor Miranda is truly guilty or not. The fact that this play only has three characters makes it quite different from most other plays as most plays have a relatively larger cast. This is apparent even in AStreetcar Named Desire as it has over 10 different characters.

STAGE DIRECTIONS:

Stage directions are instructions written into the script of a play, indicating stage actions, movement of performers or production requirements. Stage directions are typically found at the beginning of each scene, however, there are also instances when stage directions are written in between dialogues and the purpose for that is to help actors and actresses better understand what the playwright hopes for the scene to look like and perhaps also help them get into character.