Edipo se hizo mendigo y habitó entre nosotros:: una interpretación de La historia oficial y Cuerpos prohibidos

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze Argentinian film, La historia oficial (The Official Story) –
written by Aída Bortnik and directed by Luis Puenzo— and Chilean novel, Cuerpos prohibidos (Forbidden Bodies) –by Marco Antonio de la Parra— as post-dictatorial
revisionist mythmaking of the Classical myth of Oedipus. I propose that both
works focus on the tragic flaw (hamartia) of their protagonists –Alicia and Eduardo
respectively— understood as their indifference towards the political situation in
their own countries and, consequently, as their complicity with the de facto powers.
Nevertheless, the anagnorisis of these two characters leads them to abandon their
social class privileges to embrace a kind of self-exile that brings them closer to the
figure of the beggar. This is the atonement that they voluntarily assume as they feel
unworthy of being considered members of their communities.