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        Silence, Violence and the Loss of Innocence: Children in Narratives about the Spanish Civil War and its Aftermath

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        6252257. Castro Thijssen. Final Thesis BA Literary Studies.pdf (384.4Kb)
        Publication date
        2020
        Author
        Castro Thijssen, A.
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        Summary
        The Spanish Civil War took place between 1936 and 1939 and was followed by almost forty years of dictatorship. Due to repression during the dictatorship and the ‘pacto del olvido’ that was established in 1977, a big part of the stories about the war and its aftermath have to this day not yet been shared in Spain. One way in which artists deal with (the lack of) stories about the war and its aftermath is by using a child as the main character in their artistic creations. In this thesis, I analyse Los Abel (Ana María Matute; 1948), Cría cuervos (Carlos Saura; 1976) and "La lengua de las mariposas" (Manuel Rivas; 1995) in order to look at how the child character reacts to the historical context of the narrative. Moreover, I explore how the time period each work is produced in affects the stories and what it means for each author to be writing about the civil war and its aftermath. The children in the stories are affected by the atmosphere that surrounds them, which leads to an internalisation of silence, violence and the end of their childhood innocence. As their families do not inform them about the past, the children are left confused and unable to talk to others about their feelings. These narratives remain relevant nowadays in contemporary Spain as only recently Spanish society has begun looking at its past and reassessing what is being told to younger generations.
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        https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/36778
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