Memória, trauma e repressão política em o Estandarte da Agonia, de Heloneida Studart

Abstract

The civil-military dictatorship in Brazil left its mark on society, and the suffering of those who were direct or indirect victims has been recorded in fiction, as in the case of writer Heloneida Studart. In this sense, this work aims to analyze the process of remembrance of the protagonist of Studart's work O Estandarte da agonia (1981), in the context of political repression under the Brazilian military regime. Studart was a writer, journalist, state representative, feminist, and political activist who worked on several fronts, especially on behalf of women and human rights. The narrative in question has Açucena os its protagonist, who recounts her suffering in the search for her missing son amid political conflicts. The narrative also highlights how Açucena deals with the traumatic pain resulting from these events. Thus, in this qualitative research, we aim to analyze the process of remembrance of the protagonist of Heloneida Studart's O Estandarte da agonia (1981), with an emphasis on traumatic memories, in the context of political repression under the military regime in Brazil. The study is based on the theoretical views of Holanda (1980), Malard (2006), Sarlo (2007), and Vieira (2014) on the military dictatorship in Latin America; Foucault (2019) on power relations; Pollack (1992) and Halbwachs (2006) on memory; Seligmann-Silva (2008), Assmann (2011), and Freud (2020) on the relationship between memory and trauma. Heloneida Studart narrative conveys the protagonist's impressions of the sad memory of the military dictatorship, while placing women in the process of overcoming collective wounds by confronting the regime and their own conflicts.