SOURCE: Pennington, Eric. “La doble historia del Doctor Valmy: A View from the Feminine.” Symposium XL, no. 2 (summer 1986): 131-39.

In the following essay, Pennington provides an interpretation of La doble historia del Doctor Valmy from a feminist perspective, perceiving the play as a scathing indictment of a repressive patriarchy.

Antonio Buero Vallejo's La doble historia del doctor Valmy (1964) brings to the stage the difficult issue of political torture. Daniel Barnes, the protagonist, works as a member of a security police force in the fictional country Surelia, and as part of his profession regularly utilizes physical torture as a means of obtaining confessions from his prisoners. He does not relish his work, however, and much of the action of the play charts his efforts to win permission to leave his employment. By focusing on the predicament of the torturer instead of the fate of the victim, the playwright prevents...