Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden 40 lines analysis Essay

The following forty lines from Ariel Dorf pieces Death and the maidservant (1990), understand place in scene 1 of Act 3, after Roberto has been tied up by Paulina and threatened with being tortured the aforesaid(prenominal) steering as she had been, and then shot. In response to Paulinas threats, Roberto begins acknowledgeing the barbarism of his actions and his motives. This confession may be true however, Gerardo has advised Roberto to indulge Paulina, to confess as this would save his life. Whatever the case, the extract is important because it portrays how a man quarter luxate into brutality, without initially meaning to. Second, the extract is important because it wait ons break off the iniquities of dictatorial military governments. Finally, it is also important because it gives us an idea of Robertos character and personality.In this extract we clearly overhear the stages by which a level-headed doctor became a brutal sadistic torturer. Though Robertos brother told him that helping the torturers could be a way to pay the communists clog for what they did to his dad, Roberto stresses that he accepted the job for humanitarian reasons. Firstly, he wanted to help the prisoners who were dying from the tortures as someone to help care for them, someone they could trust. later on on, however, Roberto became involved in more delicate operations and was asked to sit in on sessions where his role was to determine if the prisoners could take that much torture.This indicates that he was at that place while the prisoners were tortured, watching these brutal scenes. Roberto thought this was a way of preservation peoples lives, as he ordered them to stop or the prisoner would die however, watching brutalized him, and slowly the virtue he was feeling sour into excitement. Soon, brutalization took over his life and he began to truly analogous what he was doing, so much so that, from an observer, he became a participant.Torture became a mealy for him, a game that was partly morbid, partly scientific, as he tortured women to find out things like How much stack this woman take? to a greater extent than the other one? Hows her sex? Does her sex prohibitionist up when you put the current through her? Can she have an culmination under those circumstances? By the end, Roberto had become a sadist totally preoccupy with carrying out all his fantasies of sexually torturing women who were entirely in his power, women with whom he could do whatever he wanted. So, stage by stage, we see in the interpreter of Roberto how men stool slide from positions of respectability and motives of kindness and compassion to enough human monsters, men who delight in the sufferings of others.The tragedy of Robertos slide from being a humanitarian to being a torturer is emphasized by the style of his speech, which reveals that he is an intelligent, educated, insightful man. Firstly we see how Robertos choice of words indicates his intelligence and leve l of nurture. Words much(prenominal) as brutalization and morbid, and phrases such as he lost his capacity for speech, humanitarian reasons and install a totalitarian despotism clearly manifest his ability to speak eloquently and in a high register. We also see how analytically equal Roberto is, as he does not just describe his own actions provided explains why they occurred, carefully dissecting his his motives for working with the torturers, not to pay the communists venture barely for humanitarian reasons.He can organize his account in clear, tenacious stages, with phrases like It was slowly, almost without realizing how, At first, But afterwards, By the time, I began to, and It became. Additionally, redden in the circumstances in which he is giving this confession, in precaution of his life, Roberto uses figurative language, suggesting that he has good rhetorical abilities. He uses euphemism, for example, in handicraft torture sessions delicate operations, and he us es metaphors when he refers to his brutalization as the entomb of virtue fell off, and to his descent into sadistic torture as the swamp. So, we see how Robertos use of language clearly reveals his high level of education and intelligence, and this key outs us even more horrified at how such a sophisticated man could have become a brutal torturer of women.More than exposing the degeneration of individual men, exemplified in Roberto, however, this extract also exposes the iniquities of military dictatorships, like the Pinochet regime in Chile, which Dorfman himself had to flee from. We see how military governments divided families though Roberto became a doctor devoted to saving lives, his brother, determined to pay the communists back for what they did to their father, took another path, joining the military dictatorship and becoming a fraction of the secret services. We also are given the impression of how military dictatorships can convince people to support them by manipulatin g their sufferings under previous governments, assure some kind of compensation, as Robertos brother joined the dictatorship to pay the communists back for what they did to his father the day the peasants took over his land at Las Toltecas.Such governments also persuade people to support them, as Roberto did, by deceit and lies, getting Roberto involved in torture by reflection the prisoners needed someone they could help care for them, but actually mental retardation criminalizing Roberto as a torturer. The fact that they have had such an enormous enchant on Robertos personality shows just how psychologically manipulative such regimes can be. Finally, the fact that, throughout his speech, Roberto refers to the government only as they evokes the way in which such governments work in the shadows, secretly and anonymously, to torture and terrorize. then this extract does not only show how Roberto and men like him set down when they become involved in torture it also shows how di ctatorial regimes can manipulate such men, facilitating and enabling this deterioration to occur.In conclusion, this extract is rattling important as, whether Robertos confession is true or feigned, it reveals how even the top hat of men may slide into such brutality and how military governments can create vile monsters out of exemplary human beings. Through the expatiate of Robertos confession, Dorfman is inviting his audience to consider how a man becomes sub-human. If a respectable doctor, a benefactor to the community, could turn into such a monster because of the cause of such a regime, then what would happen to the rest of society? Dorfman tries to make the reader consider that this incident that has turned Robertos life into a monster might happen to anybody in our society especially in a switch of regime.