| This dissertation analyzes works by Chilean novelists and film directors from the perspective of children: Diamela Eltit's El cuarto mundo and Mano de obra, Alberto Fuguet's Mala onda, Gustavo Graef-Marino's Johnny cien pesos and Andres Wood's Machuca. The theoretical framework draws upon insights from three theoretical traditions: psychoanalysis, social materialism and biopolitics, stressing the tension between children and adults. This study refers to concepts such as desire, repression, incest, mourning, reification, consciousness, labor, consumerism, punishment, discipline and hierarchical observation. The theoretical readings survey texts by Freud, Marcuse, Lukacs, Foucault, Agamben, Lipovetsky, Tomas Moulian, among others. The study of the following questions seeks an understanding of the mechanisms that affect young characters: How do artists envision the future of the youth as an aftermath of the dictatorship? How does the younger generation view the recent history? Were all Chileans under military scrutiny? Were there young Chileans who did not experience repression during the dictatorship? Have new generations become indifferent of the recent past? Can a narrative function as a means to historical mourning and reconstructing the collective memory of a traumatic past? In sum, this project attempts to compile a diverse group of voices that insist on the need to remember and understand the past critically.;Each chapter proposes different discourses: apocalyptic, messianic discourse, discourse of indifference and discourse of mourning. While some argue that Pinochet was a hero (messianic discourse), several artists view him as repressive, predicting that the youth experience coming of age in a social crisis, living in oblivion, while some end up exploited by the market or lured into delinquency (apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic discourses). Indifference and political apathy affect all children of the transition and reflect historical oblivion. Hedonism and delinquency are means to escape from adult politics, as they realize that even intimate facets in life are impacted by adult powers. Dictatorship overtook all aspects of life: friendship, family, and childhood. Mourning the past and criticizing today's reality through the perspective of children challenges the canonical messianic and apocalyptic discourses, allowing us to observe history from unconventional yet newly ontological vantage points. |
