abstract
Between 1967 and 1969 Hilda Hilst wrote eight plays, including As aves da noite, which details the last moments of six prisoners in a hunger detention cell, in a Nazi camp. In this essay, we analyse As aves da noite as a play that warns about the terror imposed by any totalitarian state. Thus, the article proposes a reading based on concepts of Alain Badiou, for whom the twentieth century did not keep modernity's promise, and life only fulfilled its positive fate through terror. Others concepts used in the analysis are the themes of hate and violence within totalitarian states, as proposed by Hannah Arendt.
Keywords:
Hilda Hilst; totalitarianism; poetry; theatre