The students at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and many others were forced to put together the pieces of their memories after the 1968 occupation of UNAM and the Tlatelolco massacre at the Plaza de Tres Culuturas. Roberto Bolaño takes this event as inspiration for his novel Amulet. Auxilio Lacouture, a fictional character who narrates Amulet, is a woman who remained in the women’s bathroom for thirteen days beginning during the army’s raid at UNAM. As she tells her story, she captures the views, memories, and emotions of the UNAM students. In Amulet, Bolaño utilizes time, imagery, and structural change to parallel Auxilio’s state of mind and the effect of trauma on memory; in addition, Bolaño disconnect from the events in
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Auxilio consistently confuses dates as she explains her story to the reader. At the beginning of the novel, Auxilio says she “came to Mexico City in 1967, or maybe it was 1965, or 1962” (Bolaño 2). All of the dates mentioned occur before September 1968 suggesting that she is not ready to confront the events of that day, which is common in trauma victims. Bolaño diction, like “maybe,” draws attention to the uncertainty of Auxilio’s memory (2). Another example of temporal confusion is when Auxilio says she did not know Remedios Varo because she still lived in Montevideo in 1963, and it was impossible for her to meet her seeing that “Remedios Varo died in 1963” (106). However, Bolaño continues her story by having her meet Varo in the following chapter. Bolaño manipulates time and changes events in Auxilio’s life to convey the unsure nature of the events in Mexico. Bolaño’s intention behind showing the unreliability of the Auxilio’s memory and highlighting her traumatic state of mind is to make the reader focus on the emotion behind the UNAM incidents and less on the event …show more content…
(110)
Auxilio consistently confuses dates as she explains her story to the reader. At the beginning of the novel, Auxilio says she “came to Mexico City in 1967, or maybe it was 1965, or 1962” (Bolaño 2). All of the dates mentioned occur before September 1968 suggesting that she is not ready to confront the events of that day, which is common in trauma victims. Bolaño diction, like “maybe,” draws attention to the uncertainty of Auxilio’s memory (2). Another example of temporal confusion is when Auxilio says she did not know Remedios Varo because she still lived in Montevideo in 1963, and it was impossible for her to meet her seeing that “Remedios Varo died in 1963” (106). However, Bolaño continues her story by having her meet Varo in the following chapter. Bolaño manipulates time and changes events in Auxilio’s life to convey the unsure nature of the events in Mexico. Bolaño’s intention behind showing the unreliability of the Auxilio’s memory and highlighting her traumatic state of mind is to make the reader focus on the emotion behind the UNAM incidents and less on the event …show more content…
(110)