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Abstract
Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion of bad faith and Elaine Scarry’s view of torture as “suspension of civilization” can be adapted to reveal the symbolic order behind Isabel Allende’s narrative. Love is interwoven with the shadows of the revolution in Chile: the advances in technology, new socialist ideas, the spectre of communism, and above all the right-wing military coup. While men ignore the evidence, the brutality and corruption of the dictatorship bring human beings to a halt. Against passivity and manipulation, Allende, if read through Sartre’s and Scarry’s lenses, indicates the path towards salvation.
RESUMEN
La noción de mala fe de Jean-Paul Sartre y la visión de la tortura de Elaine Scarry como “suspensión de la civilización” pueden adaptarse para revelar el orden simbólico detrás de la narrativa de Isabel Allende. El amor se entrelaza con las sombras de la evolución chilena: los avances tecnológicos, las nuevas ideas socialistas, el espectro del comunismo, y, sobre todo, el golpe militar. Mientras los hombres ignoran la evidencia, la brutalidad y la corrupción de la dictadura paralizan al ser humano. Contra la pasividad y la manipulación, Allende, si se lee a través de los lentes de Sartre y Scarry, indica el camino hacia la salvación.
PALABRAS CLAVE:
Disclosure Statement
The author has not declared any potential conflict of interest.
Notes
1 On September 11, 1973, Chile’s democratically elected left-wing president Salvador Allende was overthrown from power in a coup d’état led by the right-wing general Augusto Pinochet. The presidential palace, known as La Moneda, was repeatedly bombed by planes during the day. The very same day, Allende committed suicide before being taken prisoner and Pinochet appointed himself President. Isabel Allende, Salvador Allende’s niece, lived in exile in Venezuela and the United States for most of her adult life.
2 Asked about the names’ significance, Isabel Allende commented: “I wanted to symbolize a state of purity. Not the purity that means virginity, normally assigned to women, but the purity of facing the world with new eyes, free from contamination, without prejudice, open and tolerant, having a soul capable of being moved by the world’s colors” (Garcia Pinto Citation1991, 30).
3 Michael Handelsman has suggested that Nivea symbolizes the early suffragist movement, Clara stands for more personal statements of liberty, Blanca is sexual liberation, and Alba is the consolidation of all these distinct forms of liberation (Citation1988, 57–62).
4 Victor Jara (1932–73), a folk singer and left-wing activist, was taken to the National Stadium. Guards had Jara’s hands placed on a table. With an axe they cut off the fingers of both hands, then he was asked to play; in other versions he had his fingers fractured by the butt of a rifle. Jara stood up, went before the bleachers, and to the horrified crowd, (some 60.000 people) Jara said: “All right comrades, let’s do the senor comandante the favor.” He lifted his bleeding hands and led the crowd in singing “Venceremos” (“We will win”), the anthem of Salvador Allende’s party Unidad Popular. Officials opened fire and Jara’s body fell dead. The body was later discovered with over 40 bullets along with cigarette burns in the streets outside the stadium, alongside many others.
5 Desaparecidos, or the disappeared, are missing people, abducted, tortured, and killed by the repressive military regime. The National Stadium was used as a detention center. Officially, an estimate of 40,000 individuals were tortured and as many as 3200 were killed or disappeared (McHale Citation2001, 50), without the bodies ever being found.
6 Trueba’s death has been the subject of different analyses. By letting him die in his beloved granddaughter’s arms Allende has weakened the novel’s moral foundation. On the other hand, the torture inflicted on Alba is the price he paid for his myopia and authoritarian mentality; see Earle and Allende Citation1987.
7 The antithesis of bad faith is sincerity. However, the demand of sincerity is impossible to fulfil, since it requires someone to “be what he is” in that sense which Sartre thinks impossible for human beings (Citation1969, 58, 62). The original structure of “not being what one is” renders impossible in advance all movement toward being in itself or “being what one is” (123).
8 For a reading on violence, torture, and civilization, see Avelar Citation2004.
9 As D’Haen writes: “Magic realism thus reveals itself as a ruse to invade and take over dominant discourse(s). It is a way of access to the main body of Western literature for authors not sharing in, or nor writing from the perspective of, the privileged centers of this literature for reasons of language, class, race, or gender. Alternatively, it is a means for writers coming from the privileged centers of literature to dissociate themselves from their own discourses of power, and to speak on behalf of the ex-centric and un-privileged (with the risk of being judged ‘patronizing’ by those on whose behalf such writers seek to speak)” (Citation1995, 195).
10 With regards to female magic as weapon against the violence of the male world, Patricia Hart claims that women find other sources of power, such as clairvoyance, in the absence of access to any other real power: “Magic is alternately used or withheld to make a point about the economic and emotional dependence of women at certain time periods. The fact that Blanca and Clara are unable to liberate themselves from passivity and manipulation is hardly a criticism of Allende’s own feminism; rather it is a tribute to her honesty as a novelist” (Citation1989, 54).
11 Among others, Patricia Hart (Citation1993) and Stephen M. Hart (Citation2005) have explored the dynamic between magic realism and feminism.
12 Pinochet’s military dictatorship lasted from September 11, 1973 to March 11, 1990. Rather paradoxically, it ended with a democratic referendum with 55% of voters rejecting the proposal of extending Pinochet’s presidency for another eight years.
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Alberto Castelli
Alberto Castelli is a writer and Professor of Humanities at Hainan University, China. He is chiefly engaged with Modernism, Postmodern dynamics, and Cross-Cultural Studies. His publications include: “From Transcendence to Kitsch: Have We Lost Faith?” (Signs and Society), and “A Love that Kills: The Idiot” (Textual Practice).