Study Guide
for
The Maids
Complied by
Jocelyn L. Buckner
production dramaturg
About the Author: Jean Genet
An illegitimate child abandoned by both of his parents at a
young age, Genet turned to a life of crime and homosexual prostitution to
survive. In 1949 after 10 criminal convictions, Genet faced the threat of life
imprisonment. In an effort to save Genet, whom he believed was a promising new
leader of FranceŐs artistic community, Surrealist Jean Cocteau, with the help
of fellow artists such as Jean Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, pleaded
successfully to the French President for a dismissal of GenetŐs sentence. Genet
avoided prison for the remainder of his life, and continued to publish several
works including the novels such as The ThiefŐs Journal (1949) and A Prisoner of Love (published post-humously in 1986), and plays such as
The Balcony (1956), The
Blacks (1958), and The Screens (1963). In addition to his creative endeavors, Genet
became a political activist, affiliated with radical groups such as the Black
Panthers in the United States, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. His
activism, like his artistic work, critiqued the abuse of marginalized groups by
the social and political elite and urged reforms regarding social inequities.
Summary of The Maids
Jean GenetŐs The Maids caused a scandal when it opened in Paris in 1947
for its stark portrayal of seething working class discontent. This dark and
brooding play depicts two sisters, servants in an upper-class Parisian home,
who nightly engage in a secret ceremony of revenge while their mistress is
away. The story follows the sisters as they weave through past and present,
fiction and fantasy, truth and lies, and finally, detection and escape. For
Solange and Claire, the ritual becomes reality as they face the ultimate
challenge of despair, jealousy, hatred, and sisterly love.
Literary and Theoretical Significance
Initially produced in Paris on a double bill with a comedy, The
Maids was GenetŐs first successful play and
an exploration of the social dysfunction inherent in not only the
existentialist movement of post-World War II Europe but also his own personal
experience. Drawing on notions of role-playing and distancing, Genet explores
disparities in power and representations of gender and sexuality within the
intimate yet strained relationships between the three women in this play. Genet
draws attention to societyŐs normative constructions of gender, class, and
sexuality, which contextualize the actions of Solange and Claire as Ômonstrous.Ő
By questioning socially constructed identities, The Maids provides a complex, layered challenge to what are
considered appropriate feminine roles. Against this fallacy of normativity,
Genet challenges audiences to reconsider intimate female relationships and the
origins of the violence and passion, which lead Solange and Claire to commit
their actions.
Historical and Cultural Context
The Papin sistersŐ story drew national headlines in France
during a time when distinctions between the bourgeois and the common classes
were hard and fast, and when the lower class was suspected of less-than-human
mentality, animal-like urges, and all types of criminal behavior. The womenŐs
actions, which they described as self-defense against an abusive and angry
mistress, were condemned by the Paris press and heralded by French Communist
Party publications which upheld the killings as an act that spoke volumes about
the plight of the French laborer. Additionally, the Communist Party recognized
the sisters as victims of gender oppression in a time when civil rights for
women in France lagged behind its European counterparts (women did not gain
full citizenship and the right to vote in France until after the Liberation in
1944). Truly, this compelling story of ordinary women committing an
extraordinary crime catapulted the previously invisible plight of female
domestic laborers into the politicized spotlight of French class-consciousness.
ItŐs not surprising that Jean Genet, a social outcast himself, found
inspiration in the story of the Papin sisters.
Post-Show Discussion Questions
Consider using the following discussion prompts as part of a
post-show class discussion or creative writing assignment: