Reelaboração do passado: a guerra colonial e os impactos sobre a personagem na obra Caderno de Memórias Coloniais, de Iasbel Figueiredo

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze the re-elaboration of the past in the context of the colonial war and its impacts on the narrator-character of the work Caderno de memórias coloniais (2009) by Isabela Figueiredo. Using traces of memory, the author constructs a narrative with an autobiographical tone. However, the bias of this research focuses on the protagonist, emphasizing how she remembers her childhood and adolescence in Mozambique, then a colony of Portugal. To this end, the problem that guides the research is how remembrance contributes to the character's identity based on the context in which she is inserted. Memory is fundamental for reframing the past and has an essential function in the lives of individuals. Therefore, in what follows this research, we will give relevance to Mozambique's colonial past and postindependence struggles. We will discuss different conceptions of memory and its substantial overlap with identity. Finally, we will analyze the relationship between the protagonist and memory, her role in the Caderno de memórias coloniais narrative, and how she reworks her inner conflicts. As a theoretical apparatus, we have Ribeiro (2003), Santos (2003), Dias (2015), Mango (2016), Le Goff (1990), Candau (2016), and Halbwachs (1990), among others. We found that the work under analysis allows the reader to reflect on social and power relations by helping subjects reflect on identity aspects based on their memories.