Telling in Graciliano Ramos’s São Bernardo

Abstract

This essay aims at discussing the thematization of narrative by Graciliano Ramos’s novel, São Bernardo. This discussion takes place by means of the rhetorical and figural examination of a passage in which the narrator-protagonist, Paulo Honório, explicitly presents a scene fit for narration and brings the moment of telling to the level of its presentation. The reading of this part of the book attempts at confronting the canonical interpretations to their own conclusion, as well as to do so regarding the textual aspects of the very part analyzed. Likewise, it attempts at examining in detail the complications of the very claims and structure of the scene. The result of this reading has been a reexamination of the idea of narration in general, with reference to its staging in Graciliano’s novel.