Modernity and power in A hora dos ruminantes

Abstract

This essay aims to analyze the narrator in the novel A hora dos ruminantes (1966) by José J. Veiga, examining how the themes of modernization and progress are addressed. Despite the allegorical and metaphorical tone of Manarairema's description, the characters’ actions and the narrative voice approach the process of modernization, which took place in Brazil from the second half of the 20th century onwards. In this respect, the characters and the narrator intersect and separate in a kind of contrapuntal structure. On the one hand, the townspeople of Manarairema are represented by means of a traditional point of view. On the other hand, there is the presence of intruders, whose objective is to modernize the region. In addition, there is the narrator instance, whose point of view oscillates between one and another, composing a critique of the progress of modernization. Therefore, this article intends to map how the movements of distancing and nearness of the narrator, while functioning as a critique of the logic of modernization, are also an escape from the naturalist model that had been part of Brazilian literature since the 19th century.