Salazarist memories in The Painter of Birds, by Lídia Jorge

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7917.2014v19n2p77

This article presents a reading of the novel The Painter of Birds, by Lídia Jorge, from the perspective of post-dictatorship memories. Through this view, we examine the relationship between the family that play the leading in the plot, the Dias, and the Salazar Era, an exclusion regime lived in Portugal. For this purpose, the elements that show symmetries between the analyzed systems (family and state-dictatorial) are highlighted and show how the Salazar Era is a constituent of the narrative. Thus, it is verified in which extent the Portuguese family portrayed in the novel suits as a symbolic mean of representation of the social situation of Portugal during the dictatorship, since in the family group all aspects of the system can be perceived, such as: the obedience of the masses, the subversion of minorities, the domination, the restriction of the fundamental freedoms. The memories of the dictatorship are revealed as a constituent element of the family memories: there are two memories mobilized in an intricated form and recollected interchangeably. Thereby, it is intended to show that the Dias family follows a specific and traditional structure that presents an intimate relationship related to the political structure of the Portuguese State in the period when the narrative happens. The analysis shown finds theoretical support in the works of Tzetan Todorov, Beatriz Sarlo and Michel Pollak.