Death and the Maiden Essay

“Be a husband, not a lawyer.”
How does the situation that Paulina and Gerardo find themselves in, mirror the situation in the country in which they live? How does this enable the playwright to explore the dilemmas facing the country?

“How to forgive those who have hurt us irreparably?” The play “Death and Maiden” carries within it the disturbing truth of what occurred during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile from 1973 to 1989 where Dorfman presents to his audience the consequences inflicted on the population of such an event. In this play, Ariel Dorfman, explores a delicate issue raised during the end 20th century that left citizens traumatized and paranoid for years after. As Chile progressed into Democracy, a great deal of the population didn't, leaving people such as Paulina Salas, representing the victims of the dictatorship scared and abandoned by the Rettig Commission, Roberto Miranda, embodying the terror and paranoia the old regime inputted on Chile, left to acknowledge the responsibilities him and the other supporters of the old regime inputted on the victims and finally Gerardo Escobar, symbolizing the new era put upon the population but is left caught between this mayhem. If he represents justice he shows impotence by his wife's rape and choses the good of the country over his wife's need for revenge. If he stands by his wife, he's not doing his job of restoring peace to this wounded country. The relationship between Gerardo and Paulina mirrors the situation in the country at the time, dividing “those who wanted past terror totally buried and those who wanted it totally revealed” hence why there is still this need for vengeance from all the victims who suffered. Once the new regime had been installed, the ones who weren't victims expected the victims to forgive and forget, something which Paulina Salas and the rest of the victims surely found impossible. The play also illustrates the natural faults of human