The Tragedy of Maria

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的paper代写范文- The Tragedy of Maria，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了玛丽亚的悲剧。在琼·迪迪安的小说《如其所言》中，描述了20世纪60年代玛利亚所生活的电影工业的社交圈。由于电影产业的特殊性，迪迪安尖锐地指出了人性的每一个黑暗面，她以不同的方式象征着仇恨。

Hatred is a middle English word, meaning animosity, detestation, loathing, abomination. Hatred appears to be one of the strongest emotion that is found between people. It may be easy to hide hate for something or someone for one day, two days, one week, or one month. But how many people could keep themselves from acting on hatred for a long period of time? In Joan Didion’s novel, Play It As It Lays, Maria, an actress, is more well-known as the wife of Carter Lang, a movie director. The novel describes the social circle of film industry during 1960s, during which Maria lived. Due to the particularity of film industry, Didion sharply points out every dark side of humanity. She symbolizes hatred into different ways of abuse.

Physical abuse is considered as excessive and improper way to release stress or conflicting emotions. It comes out as violence towards innovent prople. In the novel, Multiple physical abuse is inflicted by Carter on Maria. From the beginning of the story, the separation between Maria and Carter is observed. However, the informal separation doesn’t protect Maria from unceasing domestic violence. Didion’s description of the process is indistinct, “He would knock her away, and the look on his face, contorted, teeth bared, would render her paralyzed” (Didion, 32). There are no details or any information about how severly Maria is being beaten, only the “paralyzed” can be used to  conjecture that she is being hit until she cannot move. Along with being battered, malicious words also add to Maria’s abuse at the same time, “Why don’t you just go in that bathroom and take every pill in it. Why don’t you die” (Didion 32). “Domestic violence is the relationship pattern where one intimate partner uses abusive behavior to gain or maintain power and control over the other partner” (Lugo, 15). Maria loves Carter. But it cannot be the reason that Maria should continuously endure domestic violence from Carter. It is unbelievable that Carter still hit Maria after they officially divorced. “On those nights when carter would begin banging drawers, slamming doors, throwing a magazine across the bed where she lay” (185). That is almost the end of the story, the end of torture that Maria has experienced throughout the whole story.

Besides being physically hit by someone, Maria’s mental status has been very unstable because of additional mental pressure. Maria is a non-famous actress. The two unpopular movies she played were directed by Carter, her husband, in which she never got a chance to act with her real ability. Therefore, it is not hard to understand in the film industry society, other people view her just the wife of Carter Lang. “The others at the table look first at her and then away, astonished, uneasy: something in the way her hands are tensed on the edge of the table prevents passing this off”(13). It is obvious that Maria does not like those parties or places where people are discussing and judging her. Maria is being commented as the wife of a director and it is inevitable because of the fact of her marriage with Carter. Even though she does not like it, it turns out to be her responsibility to attend and socialize with people in the film industry. That is also how Maria meets BZ and Helene, when Carter just tells Maria to go with him to BZ’s house. The pressure she has received from other people and Carter cannot be ignored. It is critical that these pressures are increasing for Maria and leads to her unhealthy mental status.

After being physical and mental torture from people around Maria, her mental status has become unstable and appear to show multiple signs of psychological problems. Driving on freeway is one of Maria’s habits. The distance that she drives in a day is incredible. There is a detailed route, “she drove the san diego to the harbor, the harbor up to the hollywood, the hollywood to the golden state, the santa monica, the santa ana, the pasadena, the ventura” (15). Driving turns out to one of the her own way of releasing built-up pressure, but actually she does not recognize it herself. The reason why Maria choose to drive could be that she thinks it might solve her sleeping problem. “On the afternoon she finally did it without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio she was exhilarated, and that night slept dreamlessly” (16). Due to the excess mental abuse Maria has endured, abnormal sleep has become one of the indicator of her psychological problems. The benefit of driving for Maria is clear, that she could keep away from thinking the hatred in her life. “Sometimes at night the dread would overtake her, bathe her in sweat, flood her mind with sharp flash images of les goodwein in new york and carter out there on the desert with bz and helene and the irrevocability of what seemed already to have happened, but she never thought about that on the freeway”(18). Driving has become the secret harbor that nobody else knows. It seems to be perfect that the tiredness after driving helps with Maria’s inability to fall asleep. Maria even tries to sleep outside by the pool. She states the reason why she would sleep outside is because of the heat inside the house, but later she says her real line that “outside she didn't have to be afraid that she would not wake up,”(17). After Carter moves out, Maria is the only person living in that big house in beverly hills. It is also understandable if she is afraid of the quietness and loneliness inside the house.

Sexual harassment, verbal and physical, results in a big discomfort and a nightmare for Maria. Especially, in the 1960s’s film industry, women were being minimized and viewed as goods by male actors, producers, and directors due to the dominated male status. Maria wants to restart work and she visits her agent, Freddy Chaikin. Instead of giving jobs or advices to Maria, Freddy asks her to watch movie with a producer called Morty Landau. Didion does not point out the underneath meaning of asking an actress who wants to be in a movie to hang out with a director. It will not be surprising if it was meant to be a trade of body and movie. The other guy called Larry Kulik has also invited Maria a few time to come to his house for sauna. Besides sexual suggestion, a detail of physical touch from BZ is mentioned in the novel. Even though BZ is homoxusal and Maria know that, when “BZ stood up, and ran the tips of his fingers very lightly across Maria’s bareback,” “Maria watched a leaf in the water and tried not to recoil from BZ’s fingers” (27). Maria feels uncomfortable when BZ touches her. But she stands it because BZ is the producer of Carter’s movie. It is a torture to stand sexual harassment and not be able to stand up and fight for ones own equality.                                                                                                                                                     

“Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams, healing can begin” (Bernock, “An Exploratory Study on Mental Health Effects of Therapist Minimization of Domestic Violence Victims' Experiences”). The traumas that other people give to Maria are shape her mental and physical health. However, She is a fighter throughout the novel.

Work Cited

Didion, Joan. Play it as it Lays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

Lugo, Blanca L. An Exploratory Study on Mental Health Effects of Therapist Minimization of

Domestic Violence Victims' Experiences, Alliant International University, Ann Arbor,

2015, ProQuest Central,

https://login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/17117392

2?accountid=28371.

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