Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 23 Issue 2 Article 2 6-1-1999 An Anatomy of Marginality: Figures of the Eternal Return and the Apocalypse in Chilean Post-Dictatorial Fiction Idelber Avelar Tulane University Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the Latin American Literature Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Avelar, Idelber (1999) "An Anatomy of Marginality: Figures of the Eternal Return and the Apocalypse in Chilean Post-Dictatorial Fiction," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 23: Iss. 2, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1464 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. An Anatomy of Marginality: Figures of the Eternal Return and the Apocalypse in Chilean Post-Dictatorial Fiction Abstract The article analyzes two novels by Chilean writer Diamela Eltit from the standpoint of the post-dictatorial imperative to mourn the dead and reactivate collective memory. After framing Eltit's fiction in the context of the avant-garde resurgence of plastic and performance arts in the second half of Pinochet's regime, I move on to discuss Lumpérica (1983) and Los vigilantes (1994) as two different manifestations of the temporality of mourning. The article addresses how Lumpérica's portrayal of an oneiric, orgiastic communion in marginality (shared by the protagonist and a mass of beggars at a Santiago square) composed an allegory in the strict Benjaminian sense; it further notes how such allegory, as an anti- dictatorial, oppositional gesture, could only find a home in a temporality modeled after the eternal return.