Criminal ancestres. The Family Memories of Two Granddaughters of Francoists in the Novels Entre hienas and Dicen

Abstract

Two literary works will be analyzed by applying the concept of “implied subject” developed by Michael Rothberg in his book Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators. It explains how descendants are connected to the past of their grandparents and how they transform the violence they perpetrated into a literary work due to the moral responsibility they feel. Writers may be affected by their emotions and feelings of family loyalty, or, on the contrary, an act of disaffiliation and family disobedience may occur. Entre hienas (2018) by Loreto Urraca and Dicen (2015) by Susana Sánchez Arins are two examples of disaffiliation and family disobedience concerning the stories of perpetrators during the Francoist regime. In both cases, the writers, as "implicated subjects," feel a moral responsibility to acknowledge the history of violence perpetrated by their ancestors and empathize with the victims, representing the perpetration in a novel.