Death and the Maiden (play)

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Death and the Maiden (original title: La muerte y la doncella ) is a play by the Chilean Ariel Dorfman, who emigrated to the USA . It premiered in 1991 under the title Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court Theater in London . The play was a great success, won many prestigious awards and has been translated into 25 languages. The German-language transmission by Ulli Stephan and Uwe B. Carstensen was first published in 1992 by Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main . The play was directed by 1994 Roman Polanski under the title The Death and the Maiden ( Death and the Maiden ) with Sigourney Weaver , Ben Kingsley and Stuart Wilson filmed. The central motif is the subject Death and the Maiden, known since the 15th century, and the string quartet No. 14 in D minor by Franz Schubert .

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The play is about Paulina Salas, her husband Gerardo Escobar and the doctor Roberto Miranda. It takes place almost exclusively in the beach house of the Escobars, whereby Paulina claims to have recognized her tormentor from the time of the dictatorship in Roberto Miranda (motivated by Chile under Augusto Pinochet ) and therefore holds him hostage. The doctor's question of guilt remains largely unresolved. In the end, Paulina tries by means of a feint in which she provides her husband with slightly incorrect information to manipulate the false confession he initiated so that only the real perpetrator could have corrected these errors. She sees the corrections as proof of his guilt, although in view of her, like Miranda's, very unstable mental situation, consistent evidence in the accepted sense cannot be assumed. Despite this fact, Paulina decides to let the doctor live and tries in this way to come to terms with her past in order to create a new life in a democracy.

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Gerardo Escobar, a prominent lawyer, has a flat tire on the way home. He does not have a jack available and therefore has to rely on the help of the doctor Roberto Miranda, who stops and drives him home. That same night Roberto visits Gerardo again and claims to have heard on the radio of Escobar's appointment as head of the commission to investigate the crimes of the military dictatorship and, out of admiration, offers him to put the car in order the next day. Roberto is very interested in Gerardo's work.

Paulina Salas, Gerardo's wife, who is in the next room, believes that, through his voice and his laughter, she recognizes her former tormentor in Roberto, who tortured and raped her fifteen years ago, back then during the dictatorship, while often Schubert's Der Tod und the girl ran.

So she decides to threaten Roberto with a revolver and handcuff him to a chair. In order to be able to process her experiences better, she wants to draw a line: She wants Roberto to admit his actions, to regret her and to make a confession.

Gerardo is of the opinion that Paulina's "evidence" (voice, laughter, smell, isolated expressions) could not withstand court and thinks that his wife is only imagining that Miranda is her tormentor. He tries to convince her to let him go in order to avoid subsequent consequences. Nevertheless, Paulina remains true to her point of view and steadfastly refuses to let Roberto go without an admission of guilt. After a lengthy discussion, the two of them decide that Roberto should record his confession on tape, after which they would release him. In order to secure a "fair trial" for him, Paulina persuades Gerardo to play Roberto's lawyer.

But since Roberto constantly protests his innocence, at Gerardo's insistence he should make a mock confession so that his wife, who is not supposed to know about it, releases Roberto. However, since he claims not to know what to confess, Gerardo asks his wife about the torture and so he passes on his information on tape to Roberto. Gerardo believes that from his legal work there is an obligation for him to treat Miranda properly and therefore he indirectly conspires against his wife.

Paulina, however, suspects it and deliberately tells Gerardo a few untruths, for example she changes one of the names slightly.

When Roberto Miranda then makes his mock confession, he unconsciously changes the supposed to the real names and Paulina now knows that he really was her tormentor.

She is counting down and wants to shoot him, but the story ends before she has finished.

At the end of the book, Paulina, Roberto and Gerado are sitting in the theater and listening to Schubert's play “Death and the Maiden”. Paulina and Roberto's eyes meet for a moment and they look at each other in silence, whereby it is not clearly clear whether it is actually Roberto or just Paulina's imagination. Paulina quickly turns her gaze forward again, Roberto's eyes stay on Paulina until the end. The string quartet plays and the piece ends.

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