Death and the Maiden

by Ariel Dorfman

Book Overview

"Suspenseful, riveting . . . Achieves a universality that is movingly personal." -- The New York Times The explosively provocative, award-winning drama set in a country that has just emerged from a totalitarian dictatorship Gerardo Escobar has just been chosen to head the commission that will investigate the crimes of the old regime when his car breaks down and he is picked up by the humane doctor Roberto Miranda. But in the voice of this good Samaritan, Gerardo's wife, Paulina Salas, thinks she recognizes another man--the one who raped and tortured her as she lay blindfolded in a military detention center years before. Relentlessly paced and filled with lethal surprises, Death and the Maiden is an inquest into the darker side of humanity--one in which everyone is implicated and justice itself comes to seem like a fragile, perhaps ambiguous invention.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140246843
• ISBN13: 9780140246841
• Release Date: December 1994
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Authentic horror and tragedies (Tragedias y horror auténticos)

I chose this play for a class I taught titled "Dictatorship and Violence as Portrayed Through Theatre". It is an excellent depiction of the suffering and trauma experienced by the people who were tortured during Pinochet's regime in Chile. It also presents the conundrum faced by one of these victims as she is presented with an opportunity to face one of her torturers. The ending was the coup de grace; or was it? Dorfman leaves it open (unlike the film, which I found to be a huge flaw). The story is authentic; the emotions, thoughts, comments, and actions are true to the horrors of the regime. This play presents a harrowing and traumatic exploration of the personal and political issues faced by Chileans who suffered through the ravages of the Pinochet regime, as well as those who learned about the darkest and most vile acts only after the end of the regime. The characters are imbued with passion, fear, and uncertainty that allows such a powerful story. It's only flaw, if it can be considered a flaw, is that perhaps Dorfman's subtle message about losing one's hatred, if only to allow oneself peace, in order to move on, is never quite resolved. Decidí usar esta obra de teatro para una clase que se llamaba "La dictadura y la violencia presentadas por el teatro". Es una representación excelente del sufrimiento y la trauma que se experimentan la gente que se torturaba durante el régimen de Pinochet en Chile. También presenta el problema que se encuentra uno de estos víctimas como se veía frente a uno de sus torturadores. El final es el golpe de gracia; ¿o quizás no? Dorfman permite que el final sea abierto (no como la película, que en mi opinión era un gran defecto). La historia es auténtica; las emociones, los pensamientos, los comentarios y las acciones son realistas a los horrores al régimen. Esta obra presenta la exploración traumática y angustiosa de los asuntos personales y políticos encontrados por los chilenos que sufrieron de los estragos del régimen Pinochet, además de la gente que aprendió de las acciones más oscuras y viles sólo después del fin del régimen. Los personajes se imbuyen con la pasión, el temor y la incertidumbre que permita tal historia poderosa. Su único defecto, si se puede considerar un defecto, es que quizás el mensaje sútil de Dorfman de la abilidad de perderse el odio, si sólo para permitirse la paz, para progresar, nunca se resuelva.

TO know or not to know??? Who KNows?

In the play Death and the Maiden there is a question of guilty or not guilty? Should we have excessive truth and knowledge, or should we be shielded from knowing too much??? The play doesn't ever answer these questions, but it does make us think about them. It's a wonderful book that places you in the supposed position of judge and jury. You only know what the characters tell you, so you have no real answer to is he guilty of the crime or is Paulina over the edge???

Fine play hampered by a difficult translation

Directly based on experiences related to Pinochet's Chilean regime and its extended aftermath, Dorfman's stage play is one of the medium's most challenging dramatic works to be written in the past few decades. A novel scenario is exploited with nearly brilliant results: this is an exciting, harrowing exploration of numerous personal and political issues, and how they interact. The roles are imbued with representational characterization in order to enforce the universal elements of the story, but they possess genuine depth. The story's conclusion lacks concrete resolution, but this ambiguity has been implemented in order to better examine numerous lingering themes; Dorfman does not pretend that all of the problems he addresses have simple solutions, if any at all. The naturalism of the dialogue is sporadic. Most of the more forceful passages are quite effective, but emotive exchanges reek of stilted melodrama. The most likely explanation is that this probably reads (and views?) far better in Castilian; what seems overblown or unnatural by the dramatic strictures of a convoluted language like English is often gratifying in that far more expressive Romantic tongue. Maybe Dorfman shouldn't be translating his own work. Readers should avoid Roman Polansky's moronic film adaptation of this play, especially if they haven't read or seen it performed beforehand; the film's insipid screenplay utilizes some of the same surprises that are much more effectively revealed in the course of the play.

Masterpiece of ambiguity and questions

I recently re-read this play after watching the DVD (which, though very good, does not do the book justice IMO). Upon my second reading, I re-discovered what had made this book so appealing to me in the first place: Dorfman does not let the Reader have any easy answers. Throughout the course of the play, the Reader grapples with questions of power, of justice, of redemption, of truth. Each individual Reader must determine for him/herself the answers to the questions which Dorfman's characters posit. It's precisely this ambiguity and involvement of the Reader that make this little book a masterpiece, a work of literature which one won't soon forget.

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN finds excitement in ideals.

Thousands of Chilean citizens are said to have "disappeared" during the regime of General Augusto Pinochet, who reigned from 1973-1990. Though not specifically set in Chile, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN is about learning to live again in the aftermath of such an era. Gerardo Escobar has just been named to a commission that will investigate human rights cases against the old government that ended in death (or the presumption of death). His wife, Paulina, was victimized herself fifteen years earlier, and still has not recovered from the trauma. Now she believes Roberto Miranda, the good Samaritan who came to Gerardo's aid on the road when he had a flat tire, is the same doctor who oversaw her torture years ago, and since there is no hope of gaining justice from the courts, she decides to put Dr. Miranda "on trial" herself. Playwright Ariel Dorfman pits his characters' heads against their hearts, and the result is a play that is as exciting intellectually as it is emotionally. They are forced to try to answer the kinds of questions with which human beings prefer never to be faced. How can we be sure of our own ideals? How can we escape our demons when they surround us every day? How can there be justice if the criminal is never punished? How can we ever learn to forgive, and NEVER learn to forget?