Thematic and formal aspects of Samuel Rawet's first short stories: Contos do Imigrante (1956) and Diálogo (1963)

• Grant number: 13/25390-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2014
• End date: December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Arnaldo Franco Junior
• Grantee: Leandro Henrique Aparecido Valentin
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project proposes a sistematic study of a set of six short stories written by Samuel Rawet, which were published in his first two books, Contos do imigrante (1956) and Diálogo (1963). Comprehending the literary procedures of Rawet's first short stories, as well as his thematic and formal values in that genre, is the the aim of this research. For this reason, a study of the particularities of the short story as a literary genre will also be focused on this research in order to Rawet's short stories be analyzed. Three significant short stories were chosen from each one of the two books. Therefore, the short stories "O profeta", "Gringuinho" and "Conto de amor suburbano" were chosen from Contos do Imigrante; "Diálogo", "Jogo de damas" and "A luta" were chosen from Diálogo. The selection criteria of the corpus are based on the articulation between thematic and formal aspects. According to the thematic aspect, short stories whose themes summarize the set of themes of the book in which they were published were selected (for instance, themes such as loneliness, silence and incommunicability). Regarding the formal aspects, texts which present different literary procedures, as straightness (or not) of the narrative; higher or lower level of apprehension of the events of the plot; use of stream of consciousness. Moreover, there are narratives in the corpus that present variations of urban space set in Contos do imigrante e Diálogo, namely: the city in general, and particularly, the suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Rawet is an author who anticipates the representation of the suburb in the Brazilian literature, which is significant. (AU)