death and the maiden essay

Paulina Salas is a former political prisoner in a Latin American country who had been raped by her captors, led by a sadistic doctor whose face she never saw. The rapist doctor played Schubert's composition Death and the Maiden during the act of rape.
Years later, after the repressive regime has fallen, Paulina lives in an isolated country house with her husband, Gerardo Escobar. When Gerardo comes back from a visit to the president, he gets a flat tire. A stranger named Dr. Miranda stops to assist him. Dr. Miranda drives Gerardo home and later in the night he returns. Paulina recognizes Miranda's voice and mannerism as that of her rapist, and takes him captive in order to put him on trial and know if he is the one that rapped her.
In my personal opinion I think that Dr. Miranda is the guy that rapped Paulina because when you are in risk and you don’t have the possibility to use one of your senses by instinct the human body expands the other senses to take place of the one that’s missing.
Some people may think that Paulina is committing a big mistake by making guilty Dr. Miranda by only hearing his voice because she can’t really know if he is guilty only guiding by his voice but the truth is that in the growing process of life we learn things from every experience we have, school, our parents, our friends and in what our society establishes what is wrong and what is not.
When we grow we learn to relate with people and to use the knowledge we obtain by the experiences we have to use when we need it in the real life to solve problems and to act as we think is right, basing on what we learned during our life.
For the perception of the universe and to interact with the objects that surround it, the man is endowed with five senses. Man's knowledge about the nature extends to having the ability to perceive things through their five senses.
The outside world we see , we touch , we smell, we tried or feel through the skin has influenced through the perception we have or the world, despite being only five senses and each have major limitations, they have served the man to relate to other men and with the outside world.
The man has some additional tools to their senses , not only to survive but to procure, in addition, welfare, comfort and happiness, to have intuition , mind, spirit and imagination about tools to achieve a long, important and happy life.
Thanks to these and other equally useful tools such as discipline and tenacity, humanity has accumulated an incomplete but important perception about the universe.
We have science and philosophy that guide us towards knowledge and life expectancies are higher than at other times of humanity, and that quality of life is better, our feelings also have an important influence in the expectations and the perception we have of the world.
Emotions and feelings are very important in our life because:
• Reflect our inner world. We report how we live within us, what is happening around us. This allows us to know each other better and meet our needs and desires and understand many of our behaviors.
• They run much of our behavior
• We show how we are evaluating and judging the different situations which we live.
• It helps us to make decisions, because as much as we analyze and think about the pros and cons of things, in the end, what we feel as a result of this analysis leads us to choose.
• It allows us to realize our thoughts and attitudes and helps us change them when necessary.
• Facilitates our adaptation to the environment and helps us to act appropriately. For example:
Anger tells us that something is bothering us and motivates us to fix it. Fear helps us to recognize that we face a situation that can be dangerous and helps to protect us. The sadness tells us that we are facing a painful and drives us to a reorganization. The joy out pleasurable and beneficial circumstances and encourages us to look like.
• They help us relate better.
Open and appropriately express our emotions, helps us to relate better because:
• Allows others know us better and we can understand more easily.
• Known as primary emotions ( fear, surprise , aversion , anger , happiness and sadness ) are reactions that may occur automatically. are intense and short-lived . If any emotion is prolonged, it is because it is being " fed " by our thoughts. Each person lives and express their feelings in a very personal way. This happens because of their genetic and life experiences that make perceive and interpret reality differently than others. For example :
Two people have to pass by a large dog. One can "see" it as dangerous , if you ever been bitten by one. The other can "see" it as beautiful and friendly , especially if you always had dog at home. The first person will surely feel fear and try to avoid it, while the second will feel calm and even pet happy and probably the perception that people have of things is based on life experiences and that will build our actions to things that happen in life , that's why I think Paulina is right in thinking that Dr. Miranda is her rapist , because to hear his voice in that situation your senses take the knowledge he acquired in his life to try safely out of the situation, and unable to see her rapist , her senses sharpened his ability to perceive other things through the senses that are available it can try to get ahead , but these senses include feelings , therefore I think it also explains how she is behaving with Dr. Miranda to try to learn the truth about his actions in the past and whether if he was guilty.