Societal Issues in "A Girl With a Pearl Earring"

The book that I'm currently reading (I still didn't finish it!) is A Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. As I'm getting further to the end of the book, I'm starting to notice the big and small conflicts in the novel and the things that cause these dilemmas. I've noticed that a lot of the big problems in the plot are caused by the societal pressures of the 1660s Holland, the setting. For instance, the love triangle between Vermeer, Griet and Pieter the Son/Catharina would've not even evolved enough to become a problem if it happened during modern times. If a modern-day young woman became a maid for a famous painter's family and fell in love with him, she would either quit the job, have an affair with the painter without his family knowing, or confess her attraction towards the man. In the novel, however, Griet could and would not be able to do any of those because of the strict values and prejudices of the society during that time period.

 Griet mentions multiple times throughout the novel about interpersonal and inner conflicts in her life that can be rooted back to societal pressures of the time period. For example, the only reason Griet becomes a maid for the Vermeer household is because her father was no longer able to work as a tile maker and thus she had to work to support her family. In the modern times, if her father was injured during his job, he would've gotten financial assistance from the government. Even if they needed another source of income, she couldn't be legally able to work in a major laboring job, like housekeeping. Griet also has major shame relating to becoming a maid. It is mentioned several times throughout the book that becoming a housekeeper is not an honorable job and usually means that her family is poor (also another thing that is considered shameful). Today, people aren't as judgmental as they were in the 1600s.

Griet also feels shame about her attraction towards Vermeer. She is so scared of people finding out the truth about it that she even fears talking about his paintings at home. Today, it might still be a source of guilt and shame to be attracted for a married man you're working for but it wouldn't be so feared if someone found out about it.

These are only the social pressures that people nowadays can relate to. There are more pressures mentioned in the book that are much more traditional and conservative in nature. Griet, for example, thinks that showing hair or opening her mouth is dishonorable. Now this might be only what she thinks, but generally since the whole story is narrated from her point of view, the readers have no choice but to interpret that as what the society thought back then. These apparent "scandalous actions" were so new to me that it took me a while to realize that they were actually real prejudices (if that even makes sense).

Overall, if the plot of the book took place in the modern days, the "big" conflicts in the novel would not be so dramatic and important to even be worthy of being the book's subject. Noticing this has made me realize how much a book can rely on its setting and how important it can be for a novel.