The me and the other of the memorialistic writing: a study of the tragic in "São Bernardo", by Graciliano Ramos

Abstract

This article aims at uncovering and analizing the tragic dimension that is implied in the reading oh the novel São Bernardo, by Graciliano Ramos, through the study of the relations between memory, writing, subject and truth, fundamentally comprised in the works The Hermeneutics of the subject, by Michel Foucault, The Phenomenology of Spirit, by Hegel, and Memory, History, Forgetting, by Paul Ricoeur. We will therefore undertake a formal analysis of the novel in order to show the transformation of the character occurred due to the experience of self-questioning provoked by the writing act or work. In addition, we will seek to prove that the access to the truth as well as the transfiguration of the subject due to the writing act, on the other hand, enable the emergence of a tragic vision of the world, in which a possible redemption is not expected. The possibility of a deeper and acuter understanding of the human conscience is expected instead.