• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.46
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• pp.199-225
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• 2017

Death and the Maiden(1990), by the Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman, directly addresses the issue of liquidating the past that the transient democratic government of Patricio Aylwin faced, the government established right after the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This article focuses on analyzing the aspects of conflicts and discords between memories of individuals as reflected in the conversations between characters of the play. For example. we look into the effects of traumatic memories of Paulina, tortured and raped by the past government, on her everyday life and examine the relationship between her personal memory and the collective memory. We also look into the discourse of the dominating memory through the confession of the rapist doctor Roberto, and observe how Gerardo, a lawyer appointed as a member of the investigation committee, exposes the truth of the case and mediates the conflict of the memories between the two characters. We uncover the problems inherent in the state memory as it tries to intervene in the strife in memories between assailants and victims and explore the possibility that the concept of memory deterritorialization would be an alternative to overcome these problems.