Comparing Girl With A Pearl Earring's The Piano

In a society where privilege and opportunity are in direct accordance with gender, women have faced the full brunt of inequality and oppression from the beginning. Despite women having come a long way in asserting their rights in society, is this inequality still prevalent in our culture? This is a question posed by two contemporary authors and explored through Girl with a Pearl Earring, written by Tracy Chevalier and The Piano, directed by Jane Campion. These texts follow Griet and Ada, two assertive and creative female protagonists struggling with individuality within an oppressive patriarchal society. Both authors use many techniques such as contrast, symbolism, allusion and motifs in order to emphasise the injustices of the patriarchal

This is shown through Griet’s journey of becoming a maid, after her father became blind and could no longer provide for the family. This also speaks volumes about the social system she lived in, as Griet, a girl of only sixteen, was required to undertake such gruelling duties as the only way to support her family. Through being a maid, Catharina and Maria Thins were continually suspicious of her. Mistresses always expected maids to be “stealing and tempting the master of the house” through Catharina’s accusation of, “don’t lie to me. Maids steal all the time.” Chevalier aided these expectations through recurring stories of the maid in the red dress, a former maid of Van Ruijven, who became unexpectedly pregnant with his child. These expectations further highlighted Griet’s position in society. Similarly, Ada was thrust in difficulties through her father, saying “today he married me to a man I have not yet met.” She was then unwillingly moved to another country, expected to quickly adapt to married life. In particular, Campion

Ada experienced confinement from Stewart’s controlling behaviour, through being physically boarded up in the house and not being trusted to leave. Stewart’s behaviour symbolises Campion’s allusion of Blue Beard’s story, where Blue Beard’s confinement of his wives closely represents Stewart’s control over Ada. This allusion further expresses the severity of her confinement and his controlling behaviour. Also, the mise en scene shows symbols of confinement through the overgrown, constricting forest setting and dense mud ground. It also reveals motifs such as Ada’s hands over her face, a stubborn horse and mediating women. These motifs reinforce the confinement of both the constricting island, as well as representing the boundaries enforced onto Ada’s life, further causing her to detach herself from society. Moreover, Griet experiences confinement through sleeping in the cellar, being locked in and out of the studio and only allowed to go home on Sundays. As well as this, Vermeer asserted master power over Griet, who felt that “if he asked me to do something, I could not say no.” However, blood was specifically used as a symbol to represent her confinement in a catholic house and a reminder of Pieter’s, and ultimately, her class. Her uncomfortable reaction to the blood strongly reinforced her confinement and the class in which the social system