De eso al menos se siente segura, aunque a veces se pregunte – y hasta lo comente con Martina – de dónde sacará ese concepto de locura y también la certidumbre. In the section of the story titled “El concepto,” the narrator affirms: “Loca no está. Even though it appears as if Laura is insane because her amnesia blocks her access to certain forms of basic knowledge and moral judgment, she appears most lucid and rational when she uses her intuition to formulate an understanding of her identity and circumstances, particularly when her interpretation directly contradicts Roque’s fabrication of reality.

Her only contact with the outside world is through Roque, his two guards, whom she identifies as “Uno” and “Dos,” and a maid, Martina. The story, set in Argentina’s guerra sucia, follows the experience of a woman identified as Laura who suffers from amnesia and is living as the wife of her captor, Roque, who she later discovers had killed her former lover and repeatedly tortured her. Luisa Valenzuela’s story “Cambio de armas” from her eponymous collection of short stories explores various ways in which self-knowledge is related to sanity.

Cambio de armas luisa valenzuela pdf