Model+Essay

Find below a model essay relating to //Girl with a Pearl Earring.//

Tracey Chevalier’s //Girl with a Pearl Earring// is a finely drawn examination of the relationships between characters, using the historical context of the sixteenth century and the real life portrait of an unknown girl to explore how relationships develop and change. Issues of power and status as well as gender underpin these relationships – particularly those between Griet, the maid in the painting and Vermeer, the artist. Chevalier uses language techniques such as symbolism, setting, imagery and a first person narrative to reinforce the idea that the world of the individual has the power to perceive that which they wish to see, rather than the reality of their situation. Griet is a maid. Her status within society is lowly, and yet she finds herself in a unique position within the Vermeer household – she becomes Vermeer’s muse and quasi-apprentice. Chevalier allows the responder the see the world through her eyes, in this personal reflective narrative which emphasizes her perspective of the events that unfold. Griet is a young, inexperienced girl on the brink of womanhood. The time she spends with Vermeer is intense – the care she must take in making sure his studio is cleaned to his satisfaction is explored through the detailed description in the novel of how she moves and replaces each item. She sees the success of her task in the pleasure Vermeer gains from her ability to clean without appearing to move anything. Early in the book their relationship is developed through the idea that Vermeer is in a position of power over Griet – if he is not pleased with her performance she will be dismissed. This brings into play the idea of status within the class structure. Griet must work so that her parents can survive, so they can afford to eat – as Griet comments ‘Eight stuivers a day…will keep the family in bread…’ Vermeer has the position and money to dictate her future, so she needs to do her best to make him satisfied with her performance. The inequality of their relationship, and the way they view each other results in the different positions they hold within this stricture. Griet is also feeling the first stirrings of her adult sexuality, and being thrown into such close proximity to Vermeer, he represents this awakening. It is her intensity of feeling for him and his art that make her aware of him as a man. He represents the lover figure that she aspires to have, yet at the same time, she is fully aware of his relationship with his wife. In her view, Catharina is merely the mother of his children – she purposefully tries to relegate their relationship to one of duty rather than passion, suggesting that ‘he would rather be in his studio’ than with his wife. This is how Griet can justify her increasingly intense, close relationship with the painter, and a view she needs to have in order for her to feel comfortable doing what she does for him – such as buying and mixing his paints and posing for the portrait in secret. In a similar way, Vermeer refuses to acknowledge the real world, but rather, that which he constructs within the walls of his studio. To him, reality is something to push aside in the quest for perfection within an artistic framework. He is consumed by his art – as is shown within the setting Chevalier uses in her novel. The studio is situated up the stairs, behind a locked door, away from the everyday bustle of life below. He transcends that life through the separation of the studio from the rest of the house. Griet, on moving to sleep in the little room off his studio becomes more deeply entrenched in his world than that of the household – yet the more subsumed she becomes to Vermeer, the more precarious her position - as Leeuwenhoek tries to warn her ‘You can get lost there’. Vermeer is unwilling to face the reality and consequences of his actions – especially when he and Maria Thins collude with Van Ruijven in the commissioning of the painting of the maid for his patron. He holds onto his world view that his art is more important than the relationship he has with his wife or children – regardless of the affect this will have on them. The symbolism of using Catharina’s pearl earrings in the composition of the portrait of Griet reinforces how blind he is to the reality of his actions through his choice to see his world in the way that he chooses. Despite Griet trying to make him realise that his view will – and eventually does – have a grave impact on her life, he remains obstinate that she must wear his wife’s pearl earrings. As he says ‘ I would never stop working on a painting if I knew it was not complete…that is not how I work.’ The symbolism of a maid wearing such a luxurious, expensive item of jewellery is not lost on Griet. Chevalier once again explores the idea that power is determined through the perspective of the person in control – in this instance, Vermeer. What he sees as a necessity for the painting juxtaposes against the reality of the class structure and status of Griet in the household – but he does not take this into consideration. Nor does he consider the reality of others over his own, narrow, art-focused perspective. The earrings are also symbolic of Griet’s innocence and purity – this represents a side of her character that Chevalier uses to juxtapose against her innermost feelings. Similarly, Griet’s determination to hide her hair also represents the Griet that knows the importance of remaining chaste to the Griet that is seen as wild and untameable – an image reinforced when her hair is freed from her cap. Griet is caught between the real world and the world she as she desires it to be. Despite this emotional conundrum, she understands the importance of the earrings to the painting and knows she will not be able to change her master’s mind regarding piercing her ears to accommodate his wishes. His power and control in an artistic sense mean she feels bound to do as requested – he is a perfectionist and needs to remain true to his art. Vermeer and his art is her master, and it is for him to reveal himself as much or as little as he chooses to her. In this respect, she creates what and who he is to fit with her own feelings – in this she very much creates her own reality, as opposed to the actuality in their relationship. Griet understands that the intensity of their relationship is fuelled by her being the model for the painting, but refuses to allow the world outside and the pressures, such as Pieter’s proposal of marriage, to impinge on her at this time. It is not until Catharina discovers the painting that both Griet and Vermeer are forced to recognise that they cannot remain isolated in their own constructions of reality, but that their actions have an impact beyond themselves. Catharina is hurt by the separation her husband practises, as suggested when she asks ‘Why don’t you paint me?’ Vermeer and Griet are both changed by their relationship with each other, and while both are forced to realise that their particular representations of reality cannot be sustained, the denouement of the novel suggests that some part of what Vermeer constructed remained a true representation of his world. Chevalier cleverly contrasts Vermeer’s insistence on viewing the painting of Griet when he is very sick as a hearkening back to a time that he felt was important to him – whether that be on an artistic or personal level. She represents Griet, on the other hand, as a practical participant in a new reality – as Pieter’s wife and the mother of his children. Griet does not look back to her time in the house with sentimentality, but is absorbed into the practicality and reality of being a butcher’s wife. Selling the pearls is an act of pragmatism that reflects on how Griet has changed her perceptions, and indeed her life. Chevalier, using the symbolic representation of the pearls at the end of the novel is able to create a symmetry in how the characters in the novel are able to see the world as they want it, rather than as it is. NB: Introduction - rewords the question; mentions author and name of book; states what themes and language techniques will be explored in the essay. Paragraph One - focus on first character, discusses language technique - first person narrative; addresses theme - power/status Paragraph Two - addresses theme gender; addresses question - how they 'see the world' Paragraph Three - note linking via 1st sentence to above paragraph & question; setting technique discussed and connects to question Paragraph Four - symbolism discussed and related to question; reiterates composer's purpose through techique Paragraph Five - connected through earring symbolism; answers question; reinforces theme - power; Paragraph Six - connects to above para through theme of power; last sentence links to introduction - how relationships change and develop Conclusion - links to above para & introduction; reinforces Chevalier as per question; last sentence ties back to question. QUOTES USED ARE SHORT, INTEGRATED AND SUPPORT DISCUSSION. MAKE SURE YOU LEARN QUOTES THAT ARE MULTIPURPOSE!
 * Van Leeuwenhoek says of Vermeer “sometimes he sees the world only as he wants it to be, not as it is.’ **
 * Choose two characters and discuss how Chevalier presents the way in which they ‘see’ the world. **