Desumanização e silêncio em Vidas secas: a narrativa das personagens marginalizadas

Abstract

This study proposes an analysis of Vidas Secas (1938) by Graciliano Ramos, investigating the processes of dehumanization and silencing imposed on the marginalized characters of the northeastern. The research situates this literary work within the “Romance de 30” period and the historical context of the “Estado Novo” (1937-1945), demonstrating how literature served as a tool for social critique in portraying the reality of Brazil's Northeast. Through bibliographic research, the study examines Ramos's "aesthetics of dryness," observing the deep-rooted relationship between the landscape's aridity and the scarcity of language. It discusses the zoomorphization of Fabiano's family in contrast to the humanization of the dog, Baleia, who is endowed with psychological interiority. The monograph concludes that the absence of identity, basic knowledge, and economic oppression function as mechanisms to maintain subalternity. Althought, silence and social invisibility become the tragic hallmarks of the retirantes' existence, whose greatest resistance lies in their insistence on surviving.