As figuras retóricas e a coisificação do ser humano em angústia, de Graciliano Ramos

Abstract

Considering the figure of Graciliano Ramos, not only among those of the 1930’s generation, but also, regarding to the tradition of Brazilian literature, this work consists in the analysis of the expressive elements building the narrative of the book Angústia. In the novel, the author addresses the trajectory of the bureaucrat Luís da Silva (narrator-character-protagonist), through his fragmented memories, whose main objective is to rebuild the course of his life from childhood on the farm, passing through adolescence, ending in his romance with Marina, to the shattering of his self. The failure of the relationship, in turn, promotes the anger of Luís, who loses control and hangs the alleged responsible for his downfall: Julião Tavares. In this scenario, we search to discuss how the use of rhetorical figures metaphor/metonymy/synecdoche) made by the author from Alagoas (Brazil) acts as an element of representation of the charac-ters in their socio-historical contexts. To do that, we follow the ideas of Antonio Candido (1975, 1999, 2006), Otto Maria Carpeaux (1942, 1952, 1953, 1978) and Sônia Brayner (1978), among other theorists as Michel Foucault (1966, 2006), Eric Hobsbawm (1997), Im-manuel Kant (2008) and Paul Ricoeur (2000). As a result, it was noticed that Graciliano Ra-mos, using figures of speech, presents human beings in a conversion process into things, where their individualities are erased at a work expense that does not represent their subjectiv-ities, equating them to automatons. The analysis of rhetorical figures works in parallel with the critical presentation of Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century, surrounded by a cli-mate of modernity, but heir to oligarchies, slave owners and capitalism. Thus, it was analyzed a philosophical idea of the thing itself and its influence on the construction of Western thought, as rhetorical figures and as protagonists in the narrative structure, the characters seen as pieces, the narrator-protagonist and his discourse on the path of dehumanization, in a sym-biotic process between humans and machines, through the anguished and fragmented figure of Luís da Silva.