Nostalgia, melancholy and failure: the formation of the malaise on José Lins do Rego's character Carlos de Melo

• Grant number: 22/15389-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Brazilian Literature
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Akcelrud Durão
• Grantee: Pedro Barbosa Rudge Furtado
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is aimed, in this research, to analyze and interpret the construction of the malaise (nostalgia, melancholy and other affects irradiated by them) and the feeling of failure on three novels written by José Lins do Rego in which the protagonist is Carlos de Melo; the novels are Menino de engenho, Doidinho and Banguê and they were published, respectively, in 1933, 1934 and 1935. To this end, our theorical framework is centered on studies regarding the critical fortune of the author and the narratives of the corpus, on the aspects of the 1930's novel and the Bildungsroman, on texts that base our notion of malaise, in addition to essays that orient our hermeneutic method founded on the idea of and integrated criticism - which allows us to observe various tension fields manifested in the novels - emphasizing, however, the emotional valency concerning the protagonist's suffering, once that most of the critical essays on these books indicate their social and economic conflicts. On Menino de engenho, it is highlighted the episodic narration that frames the boy's enthusiasm on what is new, but it also shows his perturbation guided by the genesis of a certain diffused melancholy that will always follow him; on Doidinho, Carlos de Melo's nostalgic tones about his period on the sugar mill are contraposed, mainly, to the lack of liberty at school; on Banguê, the unadjusted graduate finds himself in a state of deep dismay only interrupted by love - that, when it ruins, leaves hatred and resentment in him -, by the daydreaming e by the highly frustrated attempts of becoming a mill boss. We, thus, continue our studies (that were initiated on our doctoral thesis) about the profusion of the malaise on the 1930's novels through the exegesis of these three sadness-forming novels. (AU)