Abstract
This study examines through the sophisticated themes, dictatorship, depression and death in the post-Pinochet Chile, analysed through a feminist lens of the novel “Clean” by Alia Trabucco Zeran. This novel depicts the trauma and depression that the dictatorship created. The author has portrayed her protagonist, Estela as a maid in the upper-class family, who wanted to escape the reality and get lost in the real world, where there is no depression and oppression. This study analyses how the author has used the labour, class, race and colour as a tool to explain the pain that the dictatorship has left behind in the lives of Chilean women. The concept “Nihilism” and “Trauma induced death ideation” is being concentrated in this study, since the protagonist always had this thought “Death is a simple solution”. This study applies the post-colonial theory and the trauma theory to depict the scars that the Chilean women are bearing throughout their life, mentally and physically and on the emotional silence, oppression and the concept of “Alive-dead”, where physically living but mentally dead. Zeran explains the patriarchal suppression, systematic differences and Existential Euphoria through the life of the maid. Estela’s life in the upper-class family and her mental struggle portrays the influence the dictatorship has made and left the life and agony.
Presenters
Reshmi KrishnanStudent, Ph.D in English Literature, Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu, India Shilpi Gupta
Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, India
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
DEPRESSION, DEATH, TRAUMA, DICTATORSHIP, ALIVE-DEAD, NIHILISM, LATIN AMERICAN, LITERATURE, CLASS
