A personagem Esther: Moacyr Scliar e André Sturm em busca dos sonhos tropicais

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the figure of the Jewish Polish woman Esther in the literary work Sonhos Tropicais, by Moacyr Scliar (1992), and in the film version of the same name, directed by André Sturm (2001). The works in question portray Brazil in 1904 and the Vaccine Revolt, in which epidemics such as yellow fever and smallpox were the backdrop for political disagreements within the Rodrigues Alves government. In this context, Esther arrives in Brazil to work as a prostitute. The Polish woman is portrayed as a secondary figure in Scliar's (1992) work, while in Sturm's (2001), Esther is given a real leading role, and is even responsible for the outcome of compulsory vaccination, imposed by the main character in the literary version, the sanitarian Oswaldo Cruz.