Emotions and Ethics: A Case of Contention Regarding Paulina - Essay Example

? Emotions and Ethics: A Case of Contention regarding Paulina of Emotions and Ethics: A Case of Contention regarding Paulina Paulina, the protagonist of Death and the Maiden has been noted as a character who requires emotional attachment from the audiences as she was raped and torture as she was jailed by the military officials for her conduct of activism. But at the same time, the play calls for ethical grounds to be followed and violation to be obscured. The Author Aerial Dorfman has carefully provided two sided picture of justice in a military regime. The story The Death and the Maiden put the audiences in the agreement and disagreement of the contention that the emotional stance of the story where Paulina needs justice brings us closer to her and feel sympathetic for her experience. And also, the contention’s second side is the ethical ground violation by Paulina when she decides to kill Miranda, the doctor; she assumed that has tormented her. The audiences are provided with the pay taking two opposite sides of the perspective where Paulina fights for justice to become unjust in her approach while Gerardo, her husband who thinks that justice needs to be investigative in approach. The audiences will feel sympathetic to Paulina because she does not even know the number of times she was raped in the jail. As per the discussion, Paullina’s husband comes to know that she have tried to hide many details of her rape from her husband because she thought it would have brought a scratch in their crystal-clear relationship. It is agreeable that the sad experience of torture and rape is devastating for women as she can never live a normal life again. Paulina’s outlook to life has become so sick that she does not even give straight answers during a conversation. This is visible from the following quote, “Always got to be the wife who has to fix everything.” (Paulina after Gerardo said that it’s the wifes responsibility to fix a spare tyre, (Dorfman, 1996, p. 2)” Despite the fact that emotional bondage of the readers with Paulina becomes strong as her tormented life and the lack of ability of trusting people anymore after rape and torture has left her deserted, the fact remains that she has tried to hold criminal institutional authorities in herself. In other words, it can be said that Paulina has tried to get justice with unjust ways on her part. This should be noted as an ethical violation. At one point, Paulina is against the military outrage but in the similar way, she wants to kill Miranda (doctor) (Dorfman, 1996). The readers are able to understand that the military abductions noted on the common citizens have been torturing and unjust. The context to the ethical violation is visible in the play Death and the Maiden as different evident cases of extra-judicial abduction has been mentioned as a contextual aspect of the story (Yin, 1952). The central issue of Paulina being unjust to her agony and violating ethical grounds is evident that she wants to punish Miranda herself. If Paulina had to kill Miranda on her own part then there seems to be no difference between Paulina and unjust military officials. In a way, Paulina shows the unjust attribute of her personality which is a replica of military unjust people (Dorfman, 1996). The contention between the ethical grounds and emotional grounds is fairly visible as both Paulina and Gerardo differ in terms of injustice. Gerardo tries to tell Paulina that justice can surely be brought if the right ways are appointed and the relevant bodies take law in their hand in order to investigate the culprit (Dorfman, 1996). During the course of the play, the readers will feel the urge to express to Paulina that it will be using same unjust methods which can never get justice. Such an expression has however been made already by the husband of Paulina as he claims, “We can’t use their methods” (Dorfman, 1996, p. 15). The author has noted that despite listening to such an expression, Paulina continues to blame Miranda. There is a sense of expression that she wanted to use as a reply back. She claims, “On the contrary, as soon as I stop pointing it at you, all dialogue will automatically terminate. If I put it down you’ll use your strength to win the argument (Dorfman, 1996, p. 16).”At this point, another discussion circumference with the story beholds the truth that there is a certain ambiguity regarding Paulina’s proof of claiming Miranda as a culprit. Gerardo claims that Paulina is not even sure that he is the same man who has tormented her by raping her. The aspects and features that she has mentioned as of Miranda are relatively vague and do not provide a base for investigation. With the Paulina’s stand on punishing the doctor who tormented her is seemingly a sympathetic stance but practicality implies that Paulina needs to think rationally. This means that she can never take law in her hand and appoint unjust ways to find solution (Yin, 1952). Through the above analysis, it is easier to note and provide an agreement to the contention that emotions brings us closer to Paulina while ethics takes us away from her. It has been proved above that the unjust act of the military regime needs to be questioned as it has created an onus in the life of Paulina but at the same time, it is the duty of the lawmakers and justice system to provide solution to the problem of Paulina. The scars of being raped and torture remain a sensitive issue but in the wake of emotions, not all decisions can be made. I agree that the emotional stance did bring me closer to Paulina as I felt that it could be with someone and it is not easy to forgive those who have taken away all your happiness from you and the reason to dream. And at the same time, I also believe that happiness will come back to a person but they cannot come back by fighting for it rather achieving it. References List Dorfman, A. (1996). Death and the Maiden: A Play in Three Acts. New York: Nick Hern Books. Yin, L. (1952). An Analysis of the "Death and the Maiden Quartet" in D Minor, Opus Posthumous, by Franz Schubert. New York: University of Rochester. Read More