Violetta as a victim of her profession -- 2001-2002 Cultural Literacy Class Forum

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Date Posted: 16:21:01 12/03/01 Mon
Author: Laura Renavitz
Subject: Violetta as a victim of her profession

Jean Jacques Rousseau declared in his "The Social Contract" that "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." If one were to replace man/he with woman/she, one would wonder if Rousseau was not being prophetic about Violetta.

Violetta is a courtesean by profession, which entails her never being able to marry despite her higher status on the social scale. Her profession is her bondage. She looses, for the prime of her health during the opera, the man that she truly loves and is miserable because of it. IN fact, she never does marry Alfredo--she only lives with him before the "break up" of Act II and dies before the new "living together" desired in Act III. The fact that she never marries him shows how she is unable to escape the chains of her profession, which required no marriage. In addition, the dishonor that her profession carries nips her happiness with Alfredo in the bud (Act II) and suspends it for just long enough that she dies before being able to fully reexperience her freedom--true love.

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