Pain, meetings and affections

memory and testimony in House of spirits, by Isabel Allende

Abstract

This article aims to highlight the importance of affections for the resistance and survivor in contexts of authoritarianism. We will consider the novel House of Spirits, by the Chilean Isabel Allende. The work is about the Trueba family’s story and its relations with the political scenario. Shared in three generations, represented by Clara, Branca and Alba, demonstrates the force of females for the family trajectory. Our focus will be the third generation, represented by Alba, the narrator. Living in a dictatorial repression scenario, she assumes a place of resistance, helping politically persecuted people in their escape. Later captured by the regime, Alba is tortured and humiliated. Considering her suffering, we will highlight memories and encounters as ways to survive besides the torture. We will observe particularities of the treatment imposed on females, marked by humiliations and degradations. We will consider reflections about testimony, fundamental for the democratic construction in Latin America. For these analysis, ideas of Didi-Huberman (2014), about survival, Susel Oliveira da Rosa (2013), about the feminine torture, Tzvetan Todorov (2008) and Gagnebin (2006), about memory and testimony are relevant. This work concludes the importance of testimony and affections as a manner to assure the democratic development.