DATM Extract Flashcards
“She is entirely in your power, you can carry out all your fantasies, you can do what you want with her.”
hypocrisy
In my extract, that takes place towards the end of play, and throughout the rest of Death and the Maiden, Dorfman explores the theme of consequences and their effects on behaviour through the use of cyclical imagery and through the hypocrisy of her characters. A good example of how consequences affect a character’s behaviour in Death and the Maiden is in lines 30-31 of my extract, when Roberto talks about his victims by saying, “She is entirely in your power, you can carry out all your fantasies, you can do what you want with her.” Through this, Dorfman clearly presents that Roberto had always had a desire to do this and that the consequences of doing it were the only thing stopping him from doing “what [he wants] with” a woman. In addition to this, the use of the anonymous pronouns such as “she” and “her”, Dorfman displays the reduction of women to simply their gender. Despite Dorfman portraying the possibility that Roberto’s story in this scene is completely false, he uses it to show the savagery that humans will fall into when they either have no consequences or simply disregard them and focus only on their desires. The writer also uses this as a demonstration of the hypocrisy that is prevalent throughout the play, as Roberto is now criticising Paulina for what he had previously done himself. In this way, Dorfman shows the similarities between Paulina and Roberto as, similarly to how Roberto took the opportunity of having no consequences to do what he wants with a woman, Paulina is shown to take the opportunity of having seemingly no consequences to kill Roberto. This shows the lack of restraint in people’s behaviour when there is a complete absence of consequences, where they would otherwise change their behaviour to avoid any negative outcome.
“told [himself] that it was a way of saving people’s lives”
unexpected consequences
In lines 18-19 of my extract, Dorfman uses Roberto trying to explain why he ended up in the position that he did, with Roberto stating that he “told [himself] that it was a way of saving people’s lives” in order to make a comment about the possibility of unexpected consequences. From this, Dorfman also indicates that it is not just the fear of consequences that can make people alter their behaviour, but it can also be the desire for a better outcome with good consequences. However, in line 26, Roberto states that “a kind of—brutalization took over [his] life”, which may have been done by Dorfman in order to highlight the possibility of unexpected consequences as, although Roberto’s intentions were originally morally good, there were unexpected negative consequences to his actions. This provides yet another example of Dorfman encouraging the idea that we should consider every possible consequence of our actions when making a decision as it may eventually be “too late” to fix these consequences.
“lights go up as if the moon were coming out”
truth
Dorfman uses a stage direction in line 6 of my extract, in which the “lights go up as if the moon were coming out”, before Roberto starts talking about his good intentions. Throughout the play, light stands as a symbol for the truth, possibly implying that Roberto was being entirely truthful about his good intentions. Dorfman’s use of lighting could possibly be a representation of the idea that, even with truly good intentions, if one doesn’t consider the consequences of their actions, there may be a negative outcome.
