Amargurado dulçor: poder, submissão, coronelismo e cangaço na decadência dos engenhos açucareiros nordestinos através de Fogo Morto

Abstract

In addition to its literary importance as a modernist neorealist novel, Fogo Morto (1943), by José Lins do Rego, is a historical panel with documentary value, marked by characters who are maladjusted to the new economic and social configurations, in which a plurality of fundamental narratives for the understanding and re-signification of the socio-legal and socio-political contexts at the time are written, such as the abolition of slavery, the decadence of sugar mills and human degradation in the face of modernization, phenomena such as cangaço, coronelism, mandonismo and patriarchy. In this scenario, the present research, which is placed within the framework of the studies of Law and Literature, aimed to identify the main relations of submission and power disputes present in the plot of Fogo Morto. Nevertheless, we tried to find out how these elements relate to the legal, political, social, economic and cultural dynamics at the time, especially with regard to coronelism and cangaço.