Alberto Méndez’s *The Blind Sunflowers*: A Family’s Trauma During the Spanish Civil War
Alberto Méndez, The Blind Sunflowers
Key Ideas and Structure
1. Part of Content:
From “I now regret …” to “… they were not warned.”
Idea: The narrator currently regrets not having prevented his parents from exercising vigilance over his brother Salvador, as they did when he was a child.
1.1 His parents were alerted when the priest came by surprise to their home.
2. Part of Content:
From “kicking came …” (in the middle of the first paragraph) to “… with my mother” (end of the second paragraph).
Idea: The story of how Lorenzo’s brother, Salvador, burst into their home.
This story is based on the following facts:
- 2.1 Salvador’s entry was violent.
- 2.2 There was little furniture in the house.
- 2.3 Having looked at the book, suddenly pretending to read, the child asked him to leave them alone.
3. Third Part of the Content:
From “For many years …” (at the beginning of the third paragraph) to “… hurt my mother.”
Idea: Lorenzo’s remorse for having desired the death of the religious for years.
The death wish is specified as follows:
3.1 That the lepers would eat Salvador for hurting his mother.
4. Fourth Part of the Content:
From “because when I went …” (in the middle of the third paragraph) to the end: “My father was out of the closet.”
Idea: The story of how Lorenzo’s father came out of hiding to defend his mother.
Relationship Between the Parts and Structure
The text is structured as follows: in the first part, the narrator-protagonist expresses a current lament about a memory of his childhood. In the second, he tells the childhood memory at the height of the events. In the third, he expresses a feeling that lasted for years because of a desire that was present at the time of the narrative. In the fourth, he finishes telling the events.
Thus, the structure alternates between the narrator-protagonist’s present-day impressions about a childhood scene and the narration of this event.
Theme and Summary
Subject: Lorenzo’s impressions and narrative of the sexual assault of his brother Salvador and his mother, and his father’s coming out.
Summary: Lorenzo, as an adult, feels regret for not having prevented his parents from monitoring his brother Salvador’s interactions with him as a child. The religious brother burst violently and unexpectedly into their home, asked to speak with his mother alone, and tried to rape her. When Lorenzo went to hear the screams (wishing death upon the attacker), he saw his father come out of hiding to defend her.
Commentary
This piece (we face the imminent end of the novel) focuses on Salvador’s aggression towards his sister-in-law, Elena, and the emergence of Ricardo, her husband, who had been hiding to avoid Francoist repression. These are issues pertaining to the fourth chapter of The Blind Sunflowers (2004), a novel set during the Spanish Civil War and the early days of the post-war period, in which the protagonists are defeated, and some of their stories are told. In this passage, the author, A. Méndez, intends to show the perspective of the events of one of the protagonists: the son of the victim, who is narrating what he remembers when he is older, so it includes negative feelings. This narrator-protagonist in this fourth chapter alternates with another narrator-protagonist, Salvador, and a third-person narrator.
Faced with the possibility of forgetting a time as atrocious as that of Franco’s repression of the defeated and their families, there is the possibility of remembering what happened and expressing the difficult feelings associated with it all. Through the character of Lorenzo in The Blind Sunflowers, we can put ourselves in the shoes of real people who lived through those years (of which there are very few left today) and who went through similar events. Relatives of those who suffered reprisals simply cannot forget. It is not about seeking revenge or accusing anyone, just trying not to deny what happened and to bury the unidentified dead with their names.
If today, there being a rule of law, there are still some cases of abuse by religious figures (as in the novel, towards a woman) and by significant others, what would the situation be in the most vulnerable of times? Much worse. So you have to tell it, to know that we have improved a little, and to be clear about what cannot happen again.
If we also know that today in many countries there is a continuous state of war with violent repression (persecution, executions, torture…), it seems important to remember that Spain went through something similar, with people who lived for years in basements or hidden in the mountains until they were captured and executed (or took their own lives, as in the novel).
Moreover, I find it hard to get into the skin of these characters. Would I be able, like Elena, to keep my husband in hiding, trying to understand my child and not say anything at school, and enduring a religious figure harassing me? Would I, like Ricardo, live hidden so as not to be killed? Anne Frank experienced the latter, being Jewish, to escape the Nazis. Living like that would be a horror.
But what I probably would do would be to come out of my hiding place to defend my wife from abuse, but then I would have to commit suicide or surrender. In the case of Ricardo, I think it is an act of dignity. There are limits that should be placed on the powerful in such extreme situations, even if one’s life is endangered.
“That”
1. Adjective Determiner (Determinant)
THAT:
1.1 Interrogative: What time is it?
Exclamatory: What luck you have!
2. Pronoun
THAT:
2.1 Interrogative: What’s wrong?
Causal subordinate introducer of an indirect interrogative: I don’t know what’s wrong.
THAT:
2.2 Exclamatory: What a way!
THAT:
2.3 Relative: (Can be replaced by which, where, etc.).
2.3.1 Substantive (without an explicit antecedent): Those who did not lie told me Nx-Subj.
2.3.2 Adjective (with an explicit antecedent): I like the jacket that you’re wearing Nx-CD.
3. Adverb
THAT: What good it has turned out!
4. Conjunction
4.1 Coordinating:
Copulative: Actions speak louder than words (= and).
Disjunctive: Whether you like it or not (= or).
Adversative: It was a boy, not a girl (= It was not a child, but a girl).
4.2 Subordinating:
4.2.1 Announced conjunction (introduces substantive subordinate clauses): I want you to see.
4.2.2 Different conjunctions with a linking function as adverbial subordinate clause introducers:
Causal: Don’t run, you’ll fall (= because).
Comparative: Going with him is better than staying at home.
Consecutive: Study while you are sick.
Final: Go out, so that the sun shines on you (= so that).
5. “That” Colorless
Unnecessary.
Hortatory value: Let him take to the streets.
Narrative value: That night he killed the knight…
Optative value: Let it rain, let it rain… // What do you think of that?
This really is good. // Yes, man, yes. (Reinforces the statement).
That you’re getting… (warning).
WHAT:
1.1 Interrogative: What time is it?
Exclamatory: What luck you have!