Lima Barreto e seu duplo provável em recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha

Abstract

Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha, the first novel of Alfonso Enriques de Lima Barreto, integrally published in 1909, bases the literary analysis on this study. Lima Barreto's novel, with a pre-modernist language, evidences criticism to Brazilian society hypocrisy, especially in Rio de Janeiro, which were in a reurbanization process inspired in French; therefore, black people and mulattoes were clearly restricted in all social segments. Lima Barreto as the character Isaías Caminha, was mulatto, suffered prejudices and denounced them in his writing. José Veríssimo stated the novel has a "very intimate" character and classified it as an autobiographical novel because of similarities between the narrator- character's memories and the author's biography. This paper aims to resize correspondences between the author's biographical data and peculiarities that make up the main character; based on the concepts of Philippe Lejeune, the autobiographical pact and Michel Foucault, the self-writing. Thus, the analysis shows links between Lima Barreto and Isaías Caminha – first, centered on their personal trajectories and activism, denouncing economic, social and ethnic discriminations in the beginning of First Brazilian Republic – and then emphasizes ruptures, which separate the autobiographical character and makes prevail fiction, leading to join significant elements for the proposition of Isaías Caminha as Lima Barreto's double.