El Tragaluz (The Basement Window)

The basement window or El Tragaluz (in Spanish) is an extraordinary literary work of Antonio Buero Vallejo that deals with the repercussions of the Civil War which lasted for decades. The play was first published and staged in Madrid in the year 1967 and in order to avoid issues of censorship with the Franco government it was presented in such a way that it could not be banned. The play opens with the spectators being welcomed by two narrators who are told that they are living in the 30th century. They are then taken back in time to the 20th century as the narrators want to revisit the Spanish history under Franco’s dictatorship from a micro perspective. The family drama is presented to the audience as an experiment conducted by the two narrators on some individuals to tell the story of a family in 20th century Spain. This work does not criticize Franco’s dictatorship directly; it rather shows how the Civil War affected the life of ordinary people in the decades that followed.

In this play the story is presented to us in a very unique fashion where the family lives through the Civil War, loses its two year old daughter and faces the repercussions. After twenty seven years of interpolation of memory and oblivion, that tragic episode strikes another tragedy in the family – the death of the eldest son. The father lives with an unstable mind, his memory is stuck in 1939 when he loses his two year old daughter because of hunger and now he confuses the basement window of his house with the window of a train as he could not board that train with his family years ago. Vicente, his elder son does manage to get on to that train, which for him proves to be a journey towards progress. Mario, the younger son does not want to forget that episode as he fails to board the train. His refusal to follow Vicente on his journey at the cost of his self esteem and morality proves to be a hindrance for his progress. The mother want s no one in the family to remember the death of her little daughter as the past can bring problems to the present. Vicente, on the other hand struggles with the guilt of having caused the death of his younger sister and does not dare to deal with it until the end. It is here that we see how an attempt to cure the guilt does not resolve the issue, it rather complicates the life of all the family members as the father kills Vicente upon his confession of the “crime”. Encarna, symbolizes the exploitation and victimization of women in a patriarchal society where she is forced to become the sacrificial scapegoat owning to her poor economic background.