Trauma In The Weight Of All Things

“He would welcome being blown into another world. Into a place where his rancho was forever nestled against the hillside. Where Tata snoozed peacefully in his hammock. Where his mother and he sat in the shade, her arm thrown around him, her laughter a happy tune in his ears,” (Benitez 2001:137). In this moment of Sandra Benitez’s novel “The Weight of All Things”, nine-year-old captive, Nicolas, has experienced a significant amount of trauma and hardship in his life. Nicolas has spent a large portion of the narrative in search for his mother while being forced to work as a “work mule” for both sides of the civil war in El Salvador. Nicolas and others like him are victims of structural violence, which is defined as “a process that works slowly

Nicolas was with his mother when there was a shooting and she was killed. Nicolas’ town was bombed. Nicolas was held at gunpoint by both guerrillos and soldiers. Nicolas was forced into working for both guerrillos and soldiers. Nicolas was separated from his family more than once. It is fair to say Nicolas had been through more than his fair share of trauma. With every new addition of trauma, it can be noticed that his hope for a safe and happy future lessens a little. Yet, through it all Nicolas clings to a sliver of hope. Even if it is diminished, his hope still remains. During a great moment of chaos, “Nicolas heard Our Lady’s voice: ‘You are a lion. Eres un león’” (Benitez 2001:187). Nicolas was protected by The Virgin and kept hold to the hope that he could one day escape. To do that he needed to be brave, like a lion, as it is so mentioned in the book several times before. Because Nicolas fought to be brave and trusted in The Virgin, he was able to maintain enough hope to be prepared to escape when the ideal time presented itself. Even though Nicolas was an extreme victim of structural violence, and he did experience a significant deterioration in hope, he was able to shelter enough hope, however little, needed for him to escape the dire circumstances he was stuck in. This is not unlike the lady from the El Mozote massacre who escaped if only to mourn her murdered

This is because “El Salvador increasingly became a police state, and respect for human rights was almost nonexistent… An impoverished, suffering population longed for relief, but anyone who said anything about justice was thrown into prison or killed” (Cannon 2013:154-155). Again, this is the fine and terrible work of structural violence. The El Salvadoran government is able to get away with violence towards its own citizens for the simplest of reasons: wanting to live a well, safe, and fair life. Instead, the citizens are being cheated, abused, and silenced. This silence appears both in the taking of lives, and also the gagging of hope. Tata, from Benitez’s novel, is a man who wants no part in the civil war; he only wants safety and peace for his family. Instead of these things, Tata is forced to help the guerrillos, something that will probably cost him his life in the end. Tata does not want to die and he does not want to endanger Nicolas. But in his attempts to do everything right for his family, Tata still ends up in enough trouble to make him lose his rancho and endanger the lives of both him and Nicolas. “The old man grunted, because it was all he could do to keep from crying” (Benitez 2001:176). In this moment, Tata holds on to the slightest bit of hope after Nicolas is captured as he helplessly watches his street waiting for Nicolas to come back home. Tata hoped to create as