A LOUCURA NA MANIFESTAÇÃO LITERÁRIA BRASILEIRA

O ALIENISTA E OS DESVIOS E ATRAVESSAMENTOS DA HISTÓRIA

Abstract

Literature might be understood as a symbolic system capable to express the national reality. In this order, it allows to include, in the set of investigations about it, the representation of historically invisible trajectories. This article, in line to this theme, is focused on the analysis of the “other” in terms of “madness”, and has as its corpus The alienist, by Machado de Assis. In the investigation, it uses Lilia Schwarcz to reflect on the historical roots of violence in Brazil, Michel Foucault to discuss about the historical construction of power discourses and the relations that are established between madness and otherness, Antonio Candido to place literature in the social context. It appears that Simão Bacamarte, the central character of the work, reveals the marks and contradictions of Brazilian cultural narrative, being, in such terms, part of this deviant Brazil that, when turning to its history, finds itself with its own insanity.