Las frazadas en la memoria de la dictadura chilena: el caso de Jorge Montealegre

As Pia Montalva (2013) points out, the blankets are the artefacts that best represent political imprisonment and its ambiguities: on the one hand, they embody the basic functions of the technology of power in dictatorship: they take away speech and sight, immobilise the body, erase the individuality of the face and the countenance, isolate the individuals from their environment,. On the other hand, they contribute to restoring a certain normality in an exceptional situation such as that of confinement and allow the uncertainty of detention to be accepted.In Jorge Montealegre's testimony (2003) about his forced stay in the National Stadium, written thirty years after the military coup, the blanket is a central symbol, a matrix image that accompanies the powerful figuration of the experience in the place of captivity. This paper will analyze the dynamization of the image of the blanket, through three variations: 1. The blanket as an expression of violence 2. The blanket as an imaginative impulse 3. The blanket as a rest.