Mea Culpa and Self-Punishment: The Collaborationist in Beatriz Bracher’s Não falei and the defector in Adriana Lisboa’s Azul-corvo

Abstract

This comparative study of the works Não falei (2004) by Beatriz Bracher and Azul-corvo (2012) by Adriana Lisboa aims to analyze the representations of the responsibility-transfer mechanisms from the State to ordinary citizens, for crimes against humanity committed during the period of military dictatorship in Brazil. Building on the thoughts of Žižek (2012), we will take a look at how individuals, through the roles of informant and defector, are liable for acts of “subjective violence” committed by the regime, disregarding a primordial “systemic violence.” Taken from a logical causal context, these acts are matched and judged outside the legal system, analyzed within the personal spheres, according to affective and moral judgements. In the light of  Ricœur’s (2000) reflections on the abuses of oblivion, we will see how the “Amnesty Law” solidifies this alienating process that, in the interests of creating a national “imaginary unit,” dilutes all political crimes in a uniform amalgam of forgiveness. The Pollack’s (1993) concept of “underground memory” will help us observe the existing abuse also within the wheelhouse of memory, by forcing the penetration of the collective into the casing of individual memories. Finally, we will show how the imaginary, point of contact between literature and history, according to White (1987), proves to be an essential resource for freely remembering or forgetting, harboring these “subterranean memories.”