Áspero chão da restinga: os seringais ficcionais de Arthur Engrácio

Abstract

The object of this Masters Dissertation is the study of the fictionalization of the Amazonian rubber plantations in Arthur Engrácio's short stories collection. The general objective of the study was to trace Arthur Engrácio's short stories set focused on the Amazonian rubber plantations,seeking to analyze the ways in which this fictionalization operates the representation of such a significant period in the history of the Amazon and Brazil, which was the rubber cycle. To achieve this goal, we explore, in Engrácio’s tales, two environments of extreme representativeness in the economy of the rubber plantations: the rubber tapper's tent (tapiri) and the boss's big tent, examining the metaphorization of the two spaces and the relationships established in these spaces; we also discuss the strong presence of the enchanted in Engrácio’s tales, with special focus on three mythological beings linked to the mystery of the waters: the big snake (boiuna), the pink dolphin (boto), and the water mother; furthermore, we performed a reading of the Engrácio’s narratives in the light of the allegory of the woods of fiction, by Umberto Eco, and we thought about the crossed lines of history with fiction, emphasizing the narratives as strategies for the empowerment of the world. The theoretical axes that supported the research were: the theory of conceptual metaphor, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (2002), in the first chapter; the concept of homo resligiosus and reflections on the Amazonian imaginary, based on Mircea Eliade (1992), Câmara Cascudo (1988) and Vaz Filho and Carvalho (2013); the allegory of the walks through the woods of fiction, with the concepts of author-model and reader-model, by Umberto Eco (1994); concepts of narratology and empowerment of the world, from Motta (2013). The research evidences the literary quality of the Engrácio's narratives, in the sense of translating into Literature the flagrant of the History and the imaginary of the riverside man.