Popular Culture Review 32.1
However , as a Host , Maeve is cast as different roles herself ; while her body plays both roles , they are separate identities . In Westworld ’ s present moment , Maeve works as a madam in the Mariposa , Sweetwater ’ s saloon . In a previous “ build ,” or assigned role , she was a mother living on the frontier with her daughter , there to alternately live a peaceful homesteader ’ s life and be attacked by the Ghost Nation , the theme park Westworld ’ s stereotyped indigenous peoples . As a result , Maeve “ blurs the binary of the normal virginal and passive woman and sexually powerful deviant ” ( Erwin 135 ). Memories of that build resurface in Maeve ’ s mind due to changed code , giving her the impulses of an outraged mother that ultimately prompt her to choose looking for her former daughter in the park over escaping to the real world . Her drive until the final minutes of season one ’ s last episode , however , is to escape , which she does through sexual deviancy . Maeve has to repeatedly die and go to the park ’ s lab to work on her plan , which she does through sex : a guest chokes her to death , or she and Hector self-immolate during intercourse . She is often stabbed in the abdomen ; the knife is recognized by Carol Erwin as phallic imagery , and “ Maeve ’ s experiences of violence at the Man in Black ’ s hands [ when she witnesses her daughter ’ s death ] are much more explicitly visual ” ( Erwin 137 ) than his assault on Dolores , which remains off-camera . Maeve is Dolores ’ s foil ; in parallel shots , Dolores wakes up in bed with a white nightgown and blonde hair carefully draped around her head (“ The Original ” 3:11 ; “ Chestnut ” 1:53 ; “ The Stray ” 4:30 ) while Maeve wakes up in a black nightgown , her black curls framing her face (“ The Adversary ” 1:50 ). Maeve remembers being an outraged mother , but like Jacobs , she cannot explicitly play both roles at the same time . Instead , her escape plan must be engineered when she , like Moira , is performing sex work .
18