LACUNAS DE UMA HISTÓRIA MANCHADA: O DIÁLOGO DE “A MANCHA” COM O LEITOR

Abstract

It is analyzed, in this article, the short story “A mancha”, written by Luis Fernando Veríssimo (2004), in order to understand the literary strategies employed by the author to delineate the representation of what is real and instill literariness into the text, which happens through the intertwining of history and fiction. The theorical basis of the analysis are based on the concepts of mimesis and verisimilitude by Aristotle (2008) and Paul Ricoeur (1997) and in the conception of texts as a game by Wolfgang Iser (2002). It is possible to determine that, by articulating the past and the present of a character, having Brazilian civil-military dictatorship as its focus, Verissimo’s narrative (2004) tensions the meanings of “remembering” and “forgetting”. This movement is accomplished by the counterpoint of the voices of the narrator, protagonist and other characters that interact with him, which demands the active participation of the reader in the reconstitution of a period in Brazilian history that is tainted by blood.