The chest and key of memory in Paraízo-Paraguay, by Marcelo Labes

Abstract

The article investigates the relationship between the chest, key, and memory in the novel paraízo-paraguay by Marcelo Labes, which tells the story of a family living in a village in Santa Catarina. Olga, the matriarch, in her senile delirium, narrates the family's origin and emphasizes the two objects in the narrative. She kept her riches during World War II in the chest, and the key that opens it is kept under her intense guard. The objective is to analyze how these objects relate to memory and its erasure. The study is justified by the social need to reflect on the preservation of memories in their relationship with History and Literature, which involves the field of Psychoanalysis. The theoretical basis is memory concepts, regarding its formation and activation, aspects of collective memory erasure, and how testimony literature relates to the act of remembering. Both symbols, chest and key, are analyzed in terms of the meanings they can assume in the narrative development. The approach is qualitative, exploratory, and the procedure is bibliographic. The interpretation is that the key, present at the beginning of the narrative, triggers the act of remembering, while the lost chest is a repository of collective memories. The chest is located years after Olga's death, but without the key, which disappears from the narrative when the old woman dies, it prevents her descendants from understanding the wealth contained in it, even though they have access to its contents.