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Girl With A Pearl Earring

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Girl With A Pearl Earring

Johanne Vermeers' Girl with a Pearl Earring Painting

 In the novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" the story rotates around the character "Griet" and her life as a maid for the painter Johannes Vermeers' family, and all the ups and downs of her life working for them, including when Vermeer paints her for his, now world famous, painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring."

 Griet comes from a protestant family with three children (Griet (15/16), her younger brother Frans (~14-15) and her younger sister Agnes (~12)) living in the dutch town of Deflt which is shown as a relatively small town. Griets' family falls to poverty after her father is blinded in an accident with a kiln explosion, taking his craft of tile-painting when he is blinded. This means Griet has to go and work for the Vermeers' where the painter needs a maid who can clean without moving anything and Griets parents volunteer her. There are a lot of small conflicts in the story adding up to a big climax filled with anger, betrayal and new beginnings.

 At first there are a few little conflicts concerning the decision for Griet to become a maid but a larger conflict comes when Griet meets the family she is to clean, cook and live with. The Vermeer family has 5 children at the time when Griet meets them and, in order from youngest to oldest respectively, called Maertge (~11), Lisbeth (~10), Cornelia (~9-7), Aleydis (~4) and Johannes (~1). Griet is also introduced to the childrens' grandmother, Maria Thins and the other maid Tanneke (28) who has been working for the family for 14 years.                                

The immediate conflict comes when Griet goes to fill to water "pots" for washing clothes, and Cornelia follows close behind her, lingering close to the water when Griet has already told her and her sisters to do otherwise. This results (eventually) in Griet slapping Cornelia and Cornelia then throws one of the pots into the canal and is throwing rocks at it when Griet comes out. Griet threatens to slap Cornelia to which she retaliates with "I'll tell our mother. Maids don't slap us."

Cornelia then continues to antagonise Griet with small acts, building up momentum to a big conflict. After the big conflict (no spoilers) we continue through to a time skip in which we can see that Cornelia is still as manipulative and spiteful, as well as turning out greedy and in a bad place in life.

The morals in the story include the ideas of Karma and of always trying to be the best person you can be and that you should always persevere through all the challenges life throws your way.
Cornelia (from the 2003 film adaptation)


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