Paulina and Gerardo differ in their opinions of how exactly they should address their painful memories of the past. Gerardo sees Paulina as emotionally trapped by her memories, and he believes that she must somehow learn to put them behind her. “You’re still a prisoner,” Gerardo tells Paulina, “you stayed behind with them, locked in that basement” (Death and the Maiden, p.38). He then encourages her to “free [herself] from them” (Death and the Maiden, p. 38) in order to put her mind at rest. However, Paulina is insulted by Gerardo’s implication that her only option is to forget her pain; in her opinion justice cannot possibly be served through the channels which presently exist, so she takes the law into her own hands. To Gerardo, Paulina’s actions “open all the wounds” (Death and the Maiden, p. 38), but Paulina’s wounds have been festering for years, and she sees her action as the beginning of a process of healing.
In the play there is very little forward movement of plot in comparison to the unfolding of the past which occurs during the course of the play. Dorfman’s primary theme of the past affecting the present plays a very central role in the play. The question regarding Miranda’s role on Paulina’s abduction, rape and torture brings about a very painful legacy. Gerardo’s affair with another woman while Paulina was in captivity is another painful memory that is revealed as the play progresses. In discussing Gerardo’s infidelity he says;
You already forgave me, you forgave me, how many times will we have to go over this? We’ll die from so much past, so much pain and resentment. Let’s finish it – let’s finish that conversation from years ago, let’s go close this book once and for all and never speak about it again, never again, never never again. (Death and the Maiden, p. 54)
Even though they are trying to, both Gerardo and Paulina seem to be inadequate to move forward. They are both struggling with the issue of how exactly to deal with their past, and as a result their marriage is falling apart. They need to stop reliving the past and, like the society of which they are a part, and find a productive way to move forward.
Similarly in Henrik Ibsen’s play Ghosts there are layers of characterization, complicated by the presence of events that occurred to the characters years before the time where the play’s plot is unfolded. The play focuses on the ways in which people and events that are long gone continue to resonate, and how they stay alive from one generation to the next.
Ghosts is the story of a woman, Mrs. Alving, who is preparing for the opening of an orphanage in memory of her husband, Captain Alving, on the tenth anniversary of his death. The captain was an important and respected man in his community, and Mrs. Alving plans to raise this great memorial to him so that she will never have to ever speak of him again. She wants to avoid the awful truth: that he was a cheating, immoral womanizer whose public reputation was a sham. By building the orphanage she hopes to “silence all rumours and clear away all doubt” (Ghosts, p. 24). Their son Oswald has returned from Paris for the dedication with the news that he is dying of syphilis, which he contracted in the womb, and that he is planning to marry the family’s maid, Regina. He hopes that she can nurse him as his illness progresses, and Mrs. Alving eventually has to tell him that the maid is in reality Captain Alving’s illegitimate daughter and, thus, his sister.
The first time Oswald is introduced to the audience, he is seen to be living under the influence of his dead father. Upon seeing Oswald, Pastor Manders describes the meeting as “like seeing his father in the flesh” (Ghosts, p.15). He goes further to say that Oswald has “inherited a worthy name from an industrious man” (Ghosts, p.16), and that it should be an inspiration to him. Already it can be seen that Oswald is haunted by the “ghost” that is the memory of his father. Mrs Alving tries to keep her husband’s “irregularities” (Ghosts, p. 22) secret, to protect Oswald, who she feared would be “poisoned if he breathed the air of this polluted house” (Ghosts, p. 23). Therefore, she sent her son away at a very young age. The Orphanage is built, not only to dispel any rumours, but also to make sure that Oswald would not “inherit anything whatever from his father” (Ghosts, p. 24). This last aim proves to be unsuccessful. Although Oswald does not inherit money from his father he inherits something far worse, something from which his mother, for all her sacrifice, could not protect him. Through his father’s immoral life, Oswald has inherited congenital syphilis. The audience, along with Oswald, is, thus, reminded that “the sins of the father are revisited on the sons” (Ghosts, p. 40).
After Captain Alving “had his will” (Ghosts, p. 23) with Johanna, the maid, the result was the birth of Regina, who is also influenced by the ghosts of her past. Johanna married Engstrand, a carpenter, and they brought Regina up, until Mrs Alving took her in as a maid. Regina was not aware of her true parentage, although she always suspected something of the sort, as Engstrand often reminded her that she “was none of [his]” (Ghosts, p. 2). Mrs Alving asks Regina not to “throw [herself] away” (Ghosts, p. 54), but her respond is simply that “if Oswald takes after his father, I expect I take after my mother” (Ghosts, p. 54). She feels as if she is trapped and finds is difficult to deal with the “ghosts” of her past.
However, maybe the characters of the play are really not as much victims of their pasts, as much as the lies that are being told to cover up the past. In her attempt to follow the “path of duty” (Ghosts, p. 21) Mrs Alving covers up the truth with mistaken ideals. She tries to make the past disappear, as she builds an Orphanage in Captain Alving’s memory, to dispel any rumours of his dissolute life. Her goal is to “feel as if [her] late husband had never lived in [the] house” (Ghosts, p. 25). However, her cowardish attitude towards the truth of the past ultimately ruins not only her own life, but also the lives of the people around her.
By unfolding to the reader the memories of their main characters’ pasts, Dorfman and Ibsen stress the importance of the connection between past and present. The protagonists of their stories try to escape their past either by denying or suppressing it – but in the end this proofs to have fatal consequences. Neither seems to be able to put aside their memories and forget their past, but instead it keeps haunting them like “ghosts”. In these two cases the saying “nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget” seems to be correct, indeed. In trying to forget their past they instead end up reliving it all over again. Dorfman and Ibsen in their respective plays both nurture the idea, that sometimes accepting the fact that it is impossible to change what happened in one’s past is enough to move on.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Primary literature:
Dorfman, Ariel: Death and the Maiden (first published in 1990 as La Muerte y la Doncella;, translated from Spanish by Ariel Dorfman, 1991). New York, USA: Penguin Group, 1994
Ibsen, Henrik: Ghosts (first published in 1881 as Gengangere; translated from Norwegean by R. Farquharsom Sharp, 1911). New York, USA: Dover Thrift Editions, 1997
Secondary literature:
Mukhopsfhysy, Partha Kumar: Recent Studies of English Literature, SARUP & SONS, New Delhi, 2007.
Websites:
Mukhopsfhysy, Partha Kumar: Recent Studies of English Literature, SARUP & SONS, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 71.
