How does Dorfman use elements of dramatic presentation in order to explore the ambiguity of justice in Death and the Maiden?

The notion of justice is a largely subjective one. Political philosophers have long questioned what should be considered societally ethical, and whether true distributive justice can be achieved. Such questions are rendered increasingly complicated after such a society has undergone profound political turmoil. It would be fruitless not to recognise that Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden is an exploration into how justice can be found for individual victims, should a government be unable to provide sufficient retribution for the perpetrators of crimes. Dorfman’s clear allusion to Chile’s post-Pinochet transition to democracy provides for a striking contextual backdrop: how can a government seek recompense for those who were victims of countless crimes against humanity? Through Dorfman’s use of representative characters, the motif of justice, and dramatic devices, the play serves as a social commentary of a politically and governmentally imbalanced country, which forces the audience to consider the implications that the emergence from dictatorship poses upon a country, while simultaneously compelling individual spectators to reconsider their own notions of what should be considered “just”.

Dorfman develops symbolically representative characterisation to render the play a microcosmic depiction of the corrupt nature of a country struggling with the emergence from dictatorship. The cast consists solely of three characters: Gerardo, a lawyer and member of a commission charged with investigating the direst of crimes against humanity in the old dictatorship, whose character portrays the government responsible for the transition to democracy; Paulina, his wife, a woman so profoundly impacted by the sexual torture she underwent during the dictatorship that she finds it difficult to attend social functions, whose character depicts the copious numbers of victims who suffered from such crimes during the dictatorship; and Roberto Miranda, a well-off physician whom Paulina recognises as the nefarious doctor who raped her, whose character represents accused perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes, who are, oftentimes, affluent members of society. The gender disparity in the cast is, in itself, indicative of the roles which each of these social groups bear: Paulina, a woman, is repeatedly silenced and belittled by her patronising husband, which effectively connotes the government’s lack of willingness to accept the notion that a significant portion of the population were subject to atrocities akin to those which Paulina experienced. Almost immediately in the play, Paulina begins to criticise the effectiveness of the country’s judicial system - “The judges? The judges who never intervened to save one life in seventeen years of dictatorship? Who never accepted a single habeas corpus ever?” - only to be silenced by Gerardo, who ‘takes her in his arms’ and coos “Silly. Silly girl, my baby” until she calms down. In rendering Gerardo so condescending towards Paulina at multiple instances such as this, Dorfman directly implies that the government takes no heed when victims condemn its lack of legal intervention, and instead dismisses them as fragile. Contrastingly, Gerardo immediately treats Roberto as an equal, and invites him to stay the night, convincing him with the promise of “the breakfast [Paulina] will make for us”. As well as demonstrating that, even after the dictatorship, criminals can still lead successful lives, Gerardo saying this indicates to the audience that the government not only silences the victims of the dictatorship’s trauma, but expects them to continue leading lives which are beneficial to the establishment of the fledgling democracy. Dorfman appears to be criticising the government’s half-hearted attempt at pursuing justice by showcasing Paulina’s sardonic disdain for Gerardo’s Investigating Commission, which “only investigates cases that ended in death”, as opposed to cases such as hers, which decidedly result in lasting mental upheaval. Each of these factors force the audience to question a government which attempts to pursue justice for those who were wronged without ostracising the wrongdoers, merely because those who committed the crimes are still prominent members of society.

Furthermore, Dorfman’s use of an overarching motif of warped judicial procedure, exemplified both symbolically and lexically, serves to remind the audience of the dangers of the pursuit of vigilante justice, which has been necessitated by an inadequate government. This underlines the idea that a legal structure must be established in order for those who committed the crimes to be appropriately prosecuted; Dorfman having Paulina conduct her own (somewhat inequitable) trial highlights the lack of legal alternative. Paulina insists on maintaining negligible legal conventions, such as referring to Roberto as Gerardo’s “client” and allowing the former time to argue his own case. Ironically, the integral defining factor of the trial itself is that it is an unethical, somewhat paradoxical pursuit of justice: while systems of prosecution generally uphold an “innocent until proven guilty” policy, the only circumstance under which Paulina claims she will release Roberto is if he confesses to his alleged crimes, despite his insistence throughout the play that he is innocent. Paulina promises Gerardo that if Roberto doesn’t confess, “[she’ll] kill him”, and that if he is, in fact, totally innocent, he’s “really screwed”. Throughout the trial, Paulina sustains this threat of violence, thereby asserting her control over Roberto and Gerardo. Dorfman uses Paulina’s sudden seizure of violence to draw a parallel between her and the formal dictator: she holds a symbolic loaded gun for most of the play - a constant reminder of the danger she is capable of wreaking on other cast members. This parallelism allows Dorfman to further explore governmental weakness in the form of Gerardo: he, supposedly, spent much of the regime attempting to overthrow the dictator, and his prevalent position in the opposition circles was the original reason for Paulina’s kidnapping; however, he tells Roberto that “when crazy people have power, you’ve got to indulge them”, thereby seemingly going against that for which he campaigned during the time of the fascist government. Additionally, the fact that Paulina “ties [Roberto] to a chair” is reminiscent of the kidnapping she underwent, which she continuously references. Actions such as these remind the audience that her alternative to legal procedure is no better than the system of the previous government, and, should everyone pursue such means to seek justice, the cycle of violence would deepen and democracy would never be achieved. Paulina’s approach to achieving justice is one which would undoubtedly yield bloodshed if applied worldwide: Dorfman implores the audience to decide whether or not she is truly making the correct decision in “[opening all the] wounds”, as Gerardo states. Because the audience remains oblivious as to whether Paulina does, in fact, kill Roberto, Dorfman implies that Paulina’s choice of action is irrelevant, as she will always remain a victim, whom the government continues to disregard. 

Building on this, Dorfman continues to maintain a sense of ambiguity around each of the character’s innocence through the use of dramatic devices, hence forcing the audience to assume the role of a judge in the play’s final scene, in order for them to reflect upon their own perceptions of justice. Perhaps the most crucial of these devices is the use of the “giant mirror which descends, forcing the members of the audience to look at themselves” in Act 3, scene 1. The sudden transition from hyper-realism to a contemporary style is a jolting one: the audience members are thrust into the play itself, obliging them to scrutinise both themselves and the play’s events. The mirror not only compels the audience to determine the guilt of each character, but, alongside the “slowly moving spots [which] flicker over the audience, picking out two or three at a time”, urges them to examine their own standards of personal justice. The image of moving spots is almost reminiscent of searchlights, as though the light is attempting to elicit testimonies from the audience, thereby implying that some audience members may be just as guilty as Roberto, and should make their own confessions. The audience is further embedded into the play when Paulina and Gerardo “sit [...] in two of the seats in the audience itself”, thereby painting the audience as citizens of the country undergoing the emergence from dictatorship - the reason for all the pivotal conflicts in the play. Placing the audience on the same level as Paulina and Roberto drives them to consider the actions they would have taken, had they been in the same predicament as Dorman’s characters.

    It is clear that Dorfman’s study of justice is one which transcends the stage. In a play which is so easily applicable to real-world events, it seems only natural that the piece’s purpose be to prompt the audience towards their own conclusions. The casting of characters as clear representations of societal groups causes the audience to question the equity in each of their interactions, thereby causing them to question the equity in the actions of judicial systems in times of crisis. Paulina’s authoritative position throughout the trial seems as unethical as her perpetual silence before the trial. Such events pose as questions to the audience, and force them to decide what the correct procedure in these circumstances should be.

Word Count: 1483

Bibliography

Dorfman, Ariel. Death and the Maiden. London, Great Britain: Nick Hern Books,

     1994.