Narrative as resistance in Rubem Fonseca: an analysis of the short story “Os pobres, os ricos, os pretos e a barriga”

Abstract

Based on the short story “Os pobres, os ricos, os pretos e a barriga”, embedded in the book Carne crua (2018), by Brazilian writer Rubem Fonseca, this paper investigates the narrator's literary strategies and his ways of coping with social reality liable to be situated under the sign of resistance. The discussion of the problem takes the precepts of theorists such as Sarmento-Pantoja (2014) and Bosi (2002) in relation to the concept of resistance; Pellegrini (2001) and Jameson (1992; 1985) with regard to the contextualization of postmodernity; and literary critics Lukács (2000) and Goldmann (1964). In addition, historical notions of Hobsbawm's social banditry (1976) are utilized. Set in Latin America, fonsequian writing opens up silenced realities − such as the Brazilian periphery. Through brutalist aesthetics, Rubem Fonseca uses cinematographic stylistics whilst constructing intersected and striking statements. The purpose of this study is to look for thematic and aesthetic elements that are perceptible within the narrative with regard to the narrator's resistance. The short story, reported in first person, configures in a self-narrative protagonist a character that symbolizes the marginalization of society, the “slumization” of the periphery and the daily violence of urban space. The protagonist, in subsisting in the face of social adversity, represents political resistance to the oppressive forces of a dominant ideology.