The illusions of romance: the structure and perception in São Bernardo, by Graciliano Ramos

Author(s)

Edilson Dias de Moura

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2011-03-15

Examining board members

Joao Adolfo Hansen; Valentim Aparecido Facioli; Luiz de França Costa Lima Filho

• Advisor: Joao Adolfo Hansen

Abstract

As Ilusões do Romance: Estrutura e Percepção em São Bernardo de Graciliano Ramos is a study and analysis of the narrative, of the effects produced by the act of reading (ISER: 1996) and ending with a historical perspective of the novel at the moment of his publication (1934). In order to contemplate the last aspect, it made use of the aesthetic of reception (JAUSS: 1994). So, in conformity to this succession, the work proposes the following hypothesis: namely, that the novels personages are masks of literary patterns. That was allowed to the author of São Bernardo to criticize the conventionality of some literary ideals by that time. What is almost the same observed by Bakthin in the novels of Dostoiévski and which he named dialogism. The novel\'s personages of Graciliano Ramos are effects from illusions produced by literary ideals embodied and established in his actions. Therefore, São Bernardo allows many interpretations. In general, the second novel of Graciliano Ramos has been read like a confession of the authors style: by Paulo Honório apparently to be a kind of narrator who hardly would write a book, most readers are induced to make choice of the morale criteria of valuation, instead of a methodology of literary analysis: what intercepted a modern point of view into São Bernardo. (AU)