Suppression The Deeper Meanings of the Pearl Earrings a. Vermeer “Paints” Catharina

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d. Suppression

However, Griet experiences an internal conflict within her. She is not a bad girl. Actually, Griet feels very guilty to Catharina because she has worn her earrings. “I felt truly sorry for her. Although she could not see it, I nodded to her respectfully, and then to van Leeuwenhoek, who smiled at me”. p. 247 Griet is just an innocent victim of a rich man who wants to have her picture and a perfectionist painter who never thinks before he does and never cares of her feelings and condition. What can a woman like Griet do if she is in under control of a powerful man? Though Maria Thins has promised her that there is no painting of her but what van Ruijven wants cannot be rejected. ... Maria Thins warned, “van Ruijven is his patron, and a wealthy and powerful man. We cannot afford to offend him.” p. 167 “… He is very powerful,” he repeated, “and you are but a maid. Who do you think will win that round of cards?” “… But you have little power over what happens to you. Surely you can see that?” p. 169 She is just a poor girl from a low class society. She has no choice because her family background and social status “force” her to take this path. On the other side, if she chooses to object her master’s command to be painted, she maybe loses her job and it means that her family will be starving. These things make Griet caught in the world she does not want to. “… You’re getting caught where you should not be, Griet,” Pieter said more kindly. “Theirs is not your world.” p. 169 I did not see how they could refuse him what he wanted. p. 170 He had wanted a painting of his wife looking directly at the painter, and my master had made it. He had wanted a painting of the maid in the red dress, and had got that. If he wanted me, why should he not get me? p. 171 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 84 The processes of inserting the pearl earrings and to Griet’s ears, which are not yet pierced shows that Vermeer “is oppressing” Griet. Vermeer forces her to wear his wife’s pearl earrings even though Griet has disapproved it many times. She refuses to use the pearl earringsbecause she cannot wear them and that her ears are not pierced yetwith so many excuses but Vermeer forces her. “What are you going to ask me to do. I cannot wear it. Maids do not wear pearls.” “... You know,” he murmured, “that the painting needs it, the light that the pearl reflects. It won’t be complete otherwise.” p. 206 “You are painting it for van Ruijven,” I argued instead, “not for yourself. Does it matter so much? You said yourself that he would be satisfied with it.” p. 207 “... But, sir,” I said, “My ear is not pierced.” “I have seen you paint sometimes without the model being here. Could you not paint the earring without me wearing it?” “... What will your wife say when she sees the finished painting?” I asked instead, as boldly as I dared. p. 209 In the end, she uses them and she even asks him to put the earring in her ear. However, she just wants to obey her master and she can do nothing but all that her master wants. She is just a maid from the lower class society and a Protestant girl who works in the Catholic house and outsider who has no power to protect herself. She knows that if Catharina finds that she wears the pearl earrings, she will be driven out of the house. Actually, Griet does not meant to hurt Catharina’s feeling because she thinks that it is a process on creating a painting. Nevertheless she also worries if Catharina finds the painting of her or if she suddenly enters the studio and catches her being painted. I worried about her discovering the painting of me. Luckily the stairs to the studio were becoming awkward for her to climb, so that she was unlikely PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 85 to fling open the studio door and discover me in my chair, him at his easel. p. 198

e. Freedom