Pelas brenhas escuras do insólito: os espaços topofóbicos na literatura sertanista

Abstract

The reference to space in a narrative work entails a multitude of sociocultural information about the plot and the characters. Thus, thinking and reflecting on this diegetic element in a literary work is quite pertinent and instigating for the characterization and understanding of a narrative classified as belonging to the domains of fantastic literature. There are some spaces present in the fantastic mode that raise fear, agony and terror possibly in the reader and the characters that are enclosed in it. This thesis intends to work as this fear manifests itself in fantastic literature through space. In this sense, we seek to prove that fear is directly related to this narrative element and, therefore, without adequate space in the narratives, there is no fear. For this, we chose the space of the wilderness as the guiding thread of our analysis. It is an inland region of the country over which many prejudiced glances focus. It is usually represented with poor socioeconomic development, permeated by unusual beings and events, where an interweaving of the prosaic real and the supernatural world is observed through beliefs and legends. We can understand that the regularity of this representation triggers a peculiar aesthetic, that of Sertanismo. Analyzing the current literary research, we observe that the strand linked to the Sertanismo has an analytical lack, since it is confused with Regionalism, therefore a fertile ground for analysis and debate on the fantastic and topographic studies. We understand by Sertanista Literature the narratives that portray spaces away from the urban area; it can be said that as a rule it is a culture little affected by city habits and values. In the present thesis, we aim to differentiate Sertanism from Regionalism in Brazilian letters, to dissert about the different manifestations of the wilderness and how this space is related to the unusual through fear. We selected, to compose the corpora of analysis of this thesis short stories that represent different perspectives of various hinterlands: the São Paulo, the Minas Gerais and the Goias. We will observe in these tales how the wilderness macro space manifests itself and what other spaces (microspaces) cross it in order to observe regularities to draw a cartography of the wilderness spaces, trying to prove that without the appropriate space it is not possible to build a phobic aura and raise fear in characters and possibly readers, with space and fear intrinsically linked in fantastic literature.