Memory, history, illness: The female body and the body politic in Ana Maria Machado's Tropical sol da liberdade

ABSTRACT

This article discusses Ana Maria Machado's 1988 novel Tropical sol da liberdade in order to examine the dialects of remembering and forgetting trauma, and the female body as the symbolic site where such dialectics takes place. The trauma in question is both personal and political, and it is a result of events that occurred during the military dictatorship in Brazil: the protagonist's indirect involvement in the fight against the dictatorship, imprisonment, exile, and loss of friends and family members. The protagonist's sick body is a symptom of the psychological trauma she incurred, and the healing process necessitates resolving the dialects of remembering and forgetting the traumatic political and personal events of the past.

KEYWORDS:

• Female body
• history
• memory
• military dictatorship
• trauma

Notes

1. In Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory, Marianne Hirsch discusses “postmemories,” or memories of historical events and personal experiences lived by older generations that continue to be part of and impact the experience and subjectivity of contemporary individuals and societies.

2. The “Massacre da Praia Vermelha” refers to the incident that took place in the early hours of September 23, 1966, in the Faculdade Nacional de Medicina of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, located at the time in the Praia Vermelha neighborhood. The day before there had been student protests across the nation, against the military government and measures affecting education. At the School of Medicine in Rio, the students had also met with the school's rector to present him with their demands. After the protest, approximately six hundred students took shelter from the military police in the School of Medicine, but the police invaded the building after breaking down its gates and savagely attacked the students and destroyed the installations.

The “Passeata dos Cem Mil” brought together one hundred thousand people—including writers, artists, journalists, politicians, housewives, and members of various segments of society—who marched through the streets of downtown Rio de Janeiro to protest the military dictatorship, on June 26, 1968.

3. Throughout the novel, phrases such as “sólida e soleada” or “… seu sol, sua solidez, sua solidão” (20) are used to describe the house and its surroundings. Such phrases play on the word “sol” in the title Tropical sol da liberdade, which in turn is a direct reference to Brazil's national anthem, specifically to its first stanza: “Ouviram do Ipiranga às margens plácidas / De um povo heróico o brado retumbante, / E o sol da Liberdade, em raios fúlgidos, / Brilhou no céu da Pátria nesse instante.” Considering the context of the story, the novel's title is foremost a bitterly sarcastic commentary on Brazil's political situation during the dictatorship and its aftermath, in contrast to the optimism at the time the anthem's definitive lyrics were composed (1909) and proclaimed official by the government (1922). Some scholars concur with my reading:

… o título [Tropical sol da liberdade] também retoma o Hino Nacional, citado em determinada passagem do texto, com a intenção de lançar luz sobre o véu escuro a encobrir o sol da liberdade que não mais brilhava no céu da pátria no instante em que as vozes silenciadas retumbavam nas ruas cantando-o, ao acompanhar o enterro de um estudante, assassinado pela polícia num restaurante universitário. (Forster 54)

However, other interpretations are possible; for example, one may understand the “tropical sol da liberdade” as referring to a site of light and hope in contrast to the dark period of the military repression. In this line, Kirsten Ernst offers an interesting analysis of the novel in “Brazilian Pastoral?: Nature, Nation, and Exile in Ana Maria Machado's Tropical sol da liberdade.”