Silêncio e violência em "Anos de Chumbo" de Chico Buarque

Abstract

Grounded in the relationship between literature and society, this study turns to history and draws on literary analysis to explore how the silencing imposed by repression and dictatorial violence reinforces social stigmas in Brazilian society. These marks of suffering, born from authoritarian practices, are still evident today. The object of analysis is the short story Anos de Chumbo by Chico Buarque de Holanda. The narrative satirically references its title through an "innocent" children’s toy, lead soldiers, as a veiled allusion to the brutality of torture. The story unfolds as a memoir narrated by a protagonist who grew up under the constant presence of the military in his home and who, through an act of carelessness, ends up setting fire to the house with his parents inside. Based on this framework, the research aims to investigate the interplay between violence and silence within the literary text. The theme of violence is discussed through the works of Jaime Ginzburg (2000, 2001) and Hannah Arendt (2010), focusing on the aesthetic representation of violence and its associated traumas. The concept of silence is interpreted through the perspectives of Roland Barthes (2003) and Lourival Holanda (1992), who interpret silence as a social sign and symbolic trace. Through this analytical path, the research reveals how the violence of Brazil’s military dictatorship continues to shape everyday life, as expressed through Chico Buarque’s literary and artistic work. The study highlights the relevance of literature in addressing a traumatic historical period from the 1960s to the 1980s. In this sense, what is said and unsaid regarding the problem of violence in the fiction analyzed by Chico Buarque is an allusion to the historical and political conditions of Brazil in the context of military repression and brutality.