Speaking the Unspeakable: How Children of Militants During Argentina's "Dirty War" Have Used Literature and Film to Process Trauma
Strong, Samantha J
Citations
Abstract
It is estimated that between 15,000 and 30,000 people were disappeared (kidnapped and never seen again), during the military dictatorship that gripped Argentina in the late 1970s. Many of these “desaparecidos,” as they are often called, and other militants who were killed while attempting to fight this regime, were survived by their children or “Hijos”. In this thesis, I examine five works (three novels and two films) produced by Hijos in order to demonstrate how they have used their art to express the complex and often conflicting feelings they experienced as a result of their parents’ abductions and/or deaths. I also utilize several psychological concepts to contextualize these experiences and elucidate how the creation of these works may have served as a way of processing their trauma.
