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Seeing ghosts: Readings on the effectivity of phantasms

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Content SEEING GHOSTS:
READINGS ON THE EFFECTIVITY OF PHANTASMS
by
Fernando de Sousa Rocha
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPARATIVE LITERATURE)
August 2003
Copyright 2003 Fernando de Sousa Rocha
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UMI Number: 3116777
Copyright 2003 by
Rocha, Fernando de Sousa
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This dissertation, written by
under the direction o f h t’Q dissertation committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Director o f Graduate and Professional
Programs, in partial fulfillment o f the requirements fo r the
degree o f
Tfefnm-ido de n
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Director
Date Aug u s t 1 7 r 7001
Dissertation Committee
Cc -Chair
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Dedication
To my parents,
For all they invested in my education
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iii
Acknowledgements
Many people have shared with me the wild patience that has taken me this far, on the
far end of the educational spectrum. I would like to particularly thank Professor
Roberto Ignacio Diaz for his out-of-this-world patience to hear my intellectual as
well as personal concerns and for becoming, unknowingly, more than an advisor, a
mentor. Through my relationship with Professor Diaz, I have been reminded that
education is not merely professionalism. Professor Randal Johnson has proved to be
a critical but respectful reader as well as a model for rigorous academic research, and
I thank him for that. Professors Anthony Kemp and Maite Zubiaurre have provided
me with insightful suggestions that point to new avenues in my research. Without
these new pathways, this dissertation would be less than a ghost for me: a dead body,
inert matter. Moving into new directions gives us a sense that we have traveled this
far, on what seems to us now old avenues. But it is the path already taken that has
brought me this far, and I would also like to thank Professor Peter Starr, and
especially Professor Lucille Kerr, my former advisor, for having contributed to this
project, in different manners and at different times.
Many graduate students (now almost all of them Doctors) have shared with me the
tribulations of a doctoral program, and I would like to thank Dana Jones, for all the
support she gave me when I was merely a first-year, off-the-plane Brazilian, and
Susana Cid Hazard, for the many stories we have in common now. Claudia Tatinge
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Nascimento, although a graduate student in the far away state of Wisconsin, has
not only afforded me the pleasure of speaking in my mother tongue, but also
provided me with valuable personal and academic advice, having come herself from
the same cultural background as I have.
My family, both in Brazil and in the United States, has also proved to be my most
valuable support and motivation. This far is also part of the trajectory of immigrants,
migrants with little formal education, but an immense wealth of experiences: my
parents. With them I have learned to see ghosts. Part of our trajectory are also two
parallel lines, my brothers, with whom I have inherited, rejected, distorted, and
expanded this wealth of experiences we call parents, each one in his own manner.
On the other coast, the Pacific, Annette has had the patience to see books invade the
living-room of our house, the table of our kitchen, the stool in our bathroom and not
throw them out the window. Beyond literary aesthetics, my mother-in-law Huera
has constantly reminded me of the beauty and comfort we find in natural
surroundings. And Virginia, who has chosen to share with me the longest journey of
all, has never complained about the time I would take from our life together to
immerse myself in texts. I thank her for the love and patience with which she has
gracefully marked our lives.
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Table of Contents
v
Dedication ii
Acknowledgments iii
Note on Translations vii
Abstract viii
Preface x
1. The Logic of Unmasking 1
1.1. Acting Phantasmagorically: The Symbolic Gap 4
1.2. Freud’s Public Theater: The Vanishing Real 21
2. Caetes: Fantasies and Social Topography 40
2.1. Besides Deformation: Phantasms in the Room 42
2.2. Phantasmatic Scenes and Objective Social Investments 52
3. The Anguished Subject; Or, Investing against the Socio-Economic Logic 84
3.1. Decadence and Devaluation: Seeing Social Phantasms 86
3.2. Four Social Positions, Four Logics 100
3.3. Decapitalized Agent, Psychotic Logic 122
4. Under the Spell of an “I”: Phantasms of Apparent Disappearance 138
4.1. Sequestered Bodies, Or The Phantasms of Investiture 141
4.2. Symbolization as Political Praxis: Towards Other Phantasms 164
4.3.1 , the Supreme: A Haunted Subject Haunts Us 175
4.4. An Author’s Apparent Disappearance 187
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vi
5. Sem- + -Cerus: Graciliano Ramos’s Sincerity 205
5.1. Phantasmal Characters and the Sincere Author 207
5.2. Initial Investments: Graciliano Ramos and Romanticism 223
5.3. Pseudonyms, First Name, And a Mask for a Dead Face 236
6. Materializing Socio-Political Phantasms. Augusto Roa Bastos in Exile 256
6.1. The Drama of Exile: Phantasmatic Origins 259
6.2. Stroessner’s Vision of a Democratic Paraguay 270
6.3. The Exiled Author Writes Back 286
Conclusion 304
Bibliography 314
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Note on Translations
Translations appear in footnotes. Short translations and translations in notes
appear in square brackets, and the numbers in parentheses indicate the page number
in the original text and in the translation, separated by a slash. Translations for
Angel Rama’s La ciudad letrada are mine. Although in some cases they are slightly
modified versions of John Chasteen’s, in many other instances they are considerably
different. I have opted for a more literal translation because Chasteen, in rendering
Rama’s text into English, often omits words or sentences that are fundamental for
my reading. Translations for Graciliano Ramos’s Angiistia are by L. C. Kaplan, and
for Augusto Roa Bastos’s Yo. el supremo, by Helen Lane. Both novels were
published by Alfred A. Knopf. Translations for Jorge Luis Borges’s texts were taken
from Borges: A Reader. Translations for Brazilian Romantic poetry are mine. They
do not obey the metrics, rhythms, and rhymes of the poems. All emphases in
quotations are in the original, unless otherwise indicated. All other translations not
mentioned here are mine.
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viii
Abstract
This dissertation focuses on how one may read the concept of phantasms,
understood both as ghosts and as imaginary constructions, outside of the logic of
unmasking that has characterized both Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis. In
chapter one, I point out that a different view of phantasms entail not only the
emergence of what I call a topography, but also the sense that the apparent
disappearance of the real characteristic of psychoanalysis happens within the real.
Phantasms can be seen thus in terms of their effectivity, understood as the discursive
and social conditions that enable us to see or become phantasms.
In chapter two, I demonstrate how Ramos constructs in his first novel,
Caetes. a narrative in which the phantasmatic and objective social relations are
intertwined. Within this narrative, the protagonist constructs a practical knowledge
of the social world and of the investments he can make in it according to the position
he occupies. What I retrace in my reading of Ramos’s Angustia. in chapter two, are
the several logics and social positions that the protagonist can neither adopt nor
occupy, except for the psychotic logic through which the real is seen as the real and
hence devoid of any social significance. In my reading of Roa Bastos’s novel, which
is the focus of chapter four, I reconstruct the proliferation of phantasms that result
from political practices, and which I have called the sequestered bodies, the
symbolization of political figures, the haunting phantasm of symbolization, and the
social web of phantasms.
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If Ramos’s and Roa Bastos’s narratives are self-reflexive texts, they invite
us to think the effectivity of their authors’ own phantasms. What I propose then in
chapter five is that the effectivity of Ramos’s notion of phantasmal characters lies, in
part, in the image of a sincere author. In the last chapter, I analyze Roa Bastos’s
symbolic struggle with the “stronista” political discourse. Discursive authority might
be the beginning of a materialization of the social phantasm that Roa Bastos became
with exile, but it ultimately led to another phantasm.
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Preface
x
Hay que tener paciencia, dijo el baqueano. . . . Para ver hay que tener paciencia.
Hay que mirar y esperar meses, anos si no mas. Hay que esperar para ver.
Augusto Roa Bastos, Yo. el supremo (1974)*
“A wild patience has taken me this far,” says the poet, “as if [we] had to
bring to shore / a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor” (Rich 8). We must, indeed,
have a wild patience in order to board spasmodic boats, even if we somehow know
that they may take us to our “long-dreamed, involuntary landing[s]” (Rich 8). With
patience, but a wild one, we often board spasmodic boats and begin to see things
even before we see them: a cabin not far away from the shore, a cabin the poet
knows quite well. She knows it stands there, amidst pine trees. It is still for sale.
She knows “the chart nailed to the wallboards / the icy kettle squatting on the
burner” (9). She knows all these things because “the hands that hammered in those
nails / emptied that kettle one last time” are her two hands (9). And hands have a
memory of their own, a physical memory of contact, even with the most invisible of
things, such as the “critical light / imperceptibly scalding / the skin” that her hands
“will also salve” (9). Within our hands, we hold the memory of the effects that even
the most imperceptible of things have had on us.
From “this far,” where a wild patience has taken us, we begin to see even the
most fantastic things, perhaps because they also affect us. Like the poet’s scalded
“A little patience, the guide said.... A person has to have patience in order to see. You have to look
and wait for months, years, if not more. You have to wait to see” (20). Unless otherwise indicated,
all translations for Roa Bastos’s novel are taken from Helen Lane’s translation for the Knopff edition
o f Yo. el sunremo.
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skin, we can feel their effects. “Sabiendo esperar,” tells us the guide in Roa
Bastos’s novel, “alguien ha visto alia hasta una funcion patronal de los negros el dia
de los Tres Reyes. Tambien la vio mi abuelo Raymundo Alcaraz, pero el estuvo aqui
vicheando como tres meses. Contaba que hasta alcanzo a ver un ataque de indios
mbayas, cuando andaban maloqueando por estos lados con los portugueses” (30).
One must know how to wait, tells us the guide who shall take us into a prison of
human phantasms. If we do, our field of vision is enlarged, and the chronological
time of wait yields to an anachronism that may allow us to see even the most
primordial scenes of colonization in South America.
But how exactly should one wait? What does that wait consist of? What
happens while one waits? Waiting is a minimal action. It should take place almost
without the agent’s interference, as if not to disturb that which one is waiting for. If
one knows how to wait, one can see even that which one never suspected one could
see. Waiting, however, may also be a state of readiness, an anticipation of
something one expects to happen and which will require that one take new actions.1
While waiting, one may form an idea of that which is yet to come, as if one were
pre-forming in one’s mind what is yet to exist in the real world. Waiting may thus
be an uncanny act that appears to efface “the distinction between imagination and
reality, such as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears
before us in reality” (Freud, “The ‘Uncanny’” 398). “Before us” [“vor uns”], says
* “By patiently waiting. . . , someone even saw a patronal festival of the blacks on the day o f the
Three Kings. My grandfather Raymundo Alcaraz also saw it, but he had been watching for something
like three months. He used to tell how he’d even seen an attack by the Mbaya Indians, whey they
were coming around on raiding parties with the Portuguese” (20).
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Freud, and he calls our attention to one aspect of waiting and seeing that we might
not have noticed yet (398/258). It happens before us, which not only means that
many of us may, individually, have had uncanny experiences before. This ghostly
appearance, which Freud calls one of the forms of the uncanny, is a shared
experience, but not only in that sense, for we may also suspect that “before us”
signifies a simultaneous appearance: I see what you see. Or it might be deferred in
time: I see what you too have seen. If so, that time gap, which may extend itself into
an anachronism, as in Roa Bastos’s novel, may be bridged through representation.
What we read in Roa Bastos’s novel is, indeed, a prolonged type of bridge,
constructed upon a series of instances of story-telling. Raymundo Alcaraz, the
guide’s grandfather, tells his grandson what he saw after his long wait; the guide tells
Patino, El Supremo’s script, what his grandfather told him he saw; Patino tells El
Supremo (and hence us all, as readers) what the guide told him his grandfather had
told him he had seen. Is it possible that, in all of these instances of story-telling, one
would actually see what one is told one should see? How could it be possible that all
of these subjects involved in this chain-like story-telling should see that Alcaraz saw
all these fantastic events and therefore also see what he saw? This is the question that
I have learned to formulate “this far,” with a wild patience.
For a wild patience has also been necessary to formulate a question that
stands so far (but perhaps not all that far) from my initial concerns, which focused on
how intellectuals, especially Latin American intellectuals, may intervene in the
social world, but precisely as intellectuals, as those who are mostly concerned with
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the world of ideas. Research has, apparently, led me astray, for I soon stumbled
over innumerable fictional texts in Latin American literature in which intellectuals,
writers, and artists appear as figures of a discourse on the question I had been posing
myself. For years now, I have been haunted by these texts and, especially, by the
sensation of impotence with which Latin American authors so exhaustively
characterize these figures. Such impotence, as in Rubem Fonseca’s Bufo &
Spallanzani (1985), may be staged as sexual impotence and castration, or it may even
reach its paroxysm in the appearance of ghosts. Impotent characters, destitute and
decapitalized, are on the verge of becoming phantasms, if they have not already done
so.
And so I gradually found myself, like Alice, on the other side of the mirror,
looking back on what I had initially set up as my dissertation topic. Flaving gone,
inadvertently, through the looking-glass, I suddenly found myself facing phantasms,
when all I wanted to do was to feel my feet on the solid ground of the social world.
But, like Avery F. Gordon, I do believe that phantasms are an integral part of the
social world. If for no other reason, at least because, as Paul Ricoeur points out,
“where human beings exist, a nonsymbolic mode of existence, and even less, a
nonsymbolic kind of action, can no longer obtain” (12). That I should share such a
belief in the social presence of ghosts with a sociologist is a sign, to me, that going
through the looking-glass is not, after all, such a fantastic passage as it might initially
have seemed. Since ghosts are, by definition, those beings that outlive their own
death, I could no longer rid myself of the phantasms that I had conjured up in my
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xiv
readings of Latin American narratives, particularly in the novels of Graciliano
Ramos and Augusto Roa Bastos. What I read in these novels were complex
representations of the concept of phantasm, understood here in its double
signification of ghosts and imaginary constructs, representations that seemed, to me,
to address the different manners in which we have learned to perceive phantasms.
As far as “ghosts” are concerned, we commonly see phantasms as
apparitions, shadows of beings who no longer belong among the living. They haunt
us, but we can, apparently, make them disappear by seeing them for what they are:
ghosts or perhaps hallucinations. As in Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost,”
what haunted beings should do in order to rid themselves of phantasms is to show to
the ghosts their ghostly nature and thereby scare them away. The process should
occur in an apparent contradiction to the positions that the haunting and the haunted
beings should occupy within the act of haunting, regarding the sensations that it
fosters: the haunted being, not the haunting one, should be immobilized by his own
fear. Nonetheless, such a reversal of roles may occur when, as in Wilde’s story, we
show to the ghosts that they are nothing but a representation that we create,
sometimes with white sheets, chains, and “boos.” Phantasms are scared away when
they see themselves that they are nothing but an ensemble of cultural symbols we
have put together and which signify to us, the ones living in the real world, that
ghosts are merely the representation we have of ghosts, our own imaginary
constructs.
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Such a common perception of phantasms may appear simple (and, in fact,
it appears in the most ordinary forms of cultural production, such as soap operas),
but it also serves as the basis for two complex theories that have pervaded Western
thought throughout the twentieth-century: Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis.
Both Marx and Freud were concerned with the phantasms that we imaginarily
construct because, in not being able to scare them away, haunted subjects always see
a phantasm between themselves and the world of objective reality. A ghostly
presence now traverses their perception of the world around them, and it grows all
the more present the less these subjects are able to scare phantasms away. Because
of the haunted subjects’ inability to do so, haunting phantasms become the subject’s
own phantasms, which, from a Marxian or Freudian viewpoint, may be quite
alarming. For haunted subjects may become so attached to their own phantasms that
they cannot conceive of another way of seeing the world if not through these
phantasms.
As a type of screen interposed between the subject and the world of objective
reality, the phantasm constitutes an exemplary figure for some of the most important
issues regarding Latin American culture. For social reasons, Latin American cultural
producers have often attempted to scare away the phantasms that seemed, at times, to
be interposed between themselves and their social reality. In “Nacional por
subtragao” (1986), an essay in which Roberto Schwarz discusses the question of
copy or mimicry in relation to Brazilian culture, he cites the criticism that Silvio
Romero, one of the most eminent Brazilian critics of late nineteenth century, made of
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xvi
Brazilians’ propensity to imitate anything coming from Europe. For Romero,
“como copia, como arremedo, como pastiche para ingles ver, nao ha povo que tenha
melhor constitui^ao no papel, . . . tudo melhor... no papel. A realidade e horrivel!”
(40).* Of course, Romero’s criticism must be read within the context of late
nineteenth-century Brazilian society, which had just changed, in 1889, its form of
government from monarchical to republican.2 What Romero criticizes is thus the
almost fetishistic belief in republicanism and its book of laws, the constitution, as if,
per se, the modernization of the form of government would entail a modification in
the social relations organizing Brazilian society. By late nineteenth century, with the
military campaign against Canudos, the idea of a res publica had to be seriously
reconsidered. For what the photograph taken of the prisoners of the campaign
illustrates is that, far from the so-called modernized world, a great part of the
Brazilian population was living in sub-human conditions. Nonetheless, what
Romero’s criticism also indicates, outside of its more specifically historical context,
is that, since at least late nineteenth century, both Brazilian and Spanish American
intellectuals and cultural producers have perceived a disjunction between cultural
production and social reality. It is within this intellectual or epistemological context,
and justified by it, that phantasms appear in the texts of Latin American writers and
intellectuals: hovering over objective social reality.
The phantasm might thus point out, as Graciliano Ramos proposes, the
disembodiment of those characters that were supposed to depict fictionally the
* “as copy, as imitation, as a pastiche for the Englishmen’s eyes, there is no people that has a
constitution on paper,... everything is better... on paper. Reality is awful!’ -
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xvii
Brazilian man. Without any textual reference to the social conditions of their
existence, characters in Brazilian novels would resemble phantasms: fleshless,
independent of any of the material or physical constraints that make us, after all,
humans. The phantasm might also indicate, as Angel Rama suggests, how limited
are the interventions that Latin American men of letters can make in the social realm.
Dependent upon the colonial decision-making centers, Latin American men of letters
could only, as Rama puts it, act “phantasmagorically.” Or the phantasm might as yet
represent Latin American intellectuals’ impotence when faced with dictatorial
regimes, as Augusto Roa Bastos has pointed out in both his fictional and non-
fictional writings.
In all three cases, the basis for these writers’ perception of the phantasm is an
opposition to the real, which is, all in all, the social reality of the Brazilian man and
of Latin American men of letters, or intellectuals. It should come as no surprise,
then, that Marxism should play such an important role within twentieth-century Latin
American intellectual production. Both Marx and Latin American intellectuals have
been haunted by the same phantasm, the phantasm of a screen that masks the real.
As Ricoeur points out, Marx’s concept of ideology, at least as it is formulated in The
German Ideology, springs from an opposition between reality and ideology, which
thereby appears as “the general device by which the process of real life is obscured”
(5). In this sense, the concept of ideology for Marx, just like that of copy or mimicry
for Romero, functions as a phantasmatic screen, which persists even when Marx
moves away from this opposition to the real in order to conceive of ideology in its
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xviii
relation to science, the science that Marxism would claim to be. Whether in
opposition to the real or to science, the concept of ideology, just like that of the
unconscious, remains tied to a logic of unmasking, that is, a logic through which
subjects see the real as hidden underneath ideology. As a result of such logic,
subjects must lift the veil of ideology in order to see the real. They must, in other
words, reveal the real, make it appear from underneath ideology.
However, what we have learned, historically, is that phantasms, whether they
take the form of ideology or mimicry, are not so easily dismissed, even when the
real, as in the photograph of Canudos, appears to slap us in the face. If phantasms
were such a thin screen, merely an illusion masking the real, the very act of
conceptualizing the phantasm and of understanding how it operates as a mask would
enable us to dispel such an illusion and face the real. Nonetheless, phantasms often
reappear. They seem to manifest themselves in different instances of appearance,
disappearance, and reappearance, and such a refusal to completely disappear poses a
problem to the idea of a masked real.
The general argument of my dissertation is that Graciliano Ramos’s Caetes
and Aneustia and Augusto Roa Bastos’s Yo. el supremo represent phantasms in a
manner that differs from what the logic of unmasking does, presenting them in terms
of their effectivity, understood as the discursive constructs and the social conditions
that support their credibility and their capacity to produce effects on the social realm.
I should add here that, since I deal more with the effectivity of phantasms rather than
their definitions or the uses writers make of the term, my readings shall always go
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xix
beyond phantasms. I thus begin my readings, in chapter one, precisely with the
problems posed by the logic of unmasking and the new avenues we might derive
from it.
In the first part of the chapter, I take as my starting point Angel Rama’s La
ciudad letrada. which turns out to be an exemplary text in order to evince the gap that
the logic of unmasking “reveals” between cultural/symbolic production and the real.
For, in his attempt to explain the discrepancy between the “lettered city” and the
“real” city, Rama utilizes different theories through which one might view, although
under different forms, such a gap. What later developments of Marxism and the
critique of ideology critique indicate, however, is that the logic of unmasking tends
to essentialism. One aspires, through the logic and the practices one may derive
thereof, to bridge the gap, to make the symbolic coincide with the real. That
essentialism, when phantasms are finally cast away, is overcome when the spatial
metaphor of a stratified organization is replaced by that of a topography, understood
as a mapping of the relations that organize a specific space. In this sense, the notion
of topography allows us to perceive what I have called the effectivity of phantasms.
In the second part of the first chapter, I examine Freud’s psychoanalytical
writings, which represent, in contrast with Marxism, a different manner of
approaching phantasms, albeit still in accordance with the logic of unmasking.
Rather than dismissing the phantasm right away, psychoanalysis turns the phantasm
into its very object of research. The first objective in this part of the chapter is thus
to retrace how Freud’s search for the “real” through the phantasm led him to a cul-
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XX
de-sac. He neither envisaged the reality of the events that led to a psychic trauma,
nor could he perceive, beyond proof of doubt, the real of his patients’ fantasies.
What one discovers, after reaching this cul-de-sac in which the “real” appears to
vanish, is that psychoanalysis becomes the construction of a narrative. However, one
should note, as I point out at the end of the chapter, that this apparent disappearance
of the real is also the appearance, within the real, of another phantasm:
psychoanalysis. Like artists, Freud found a way of returning from phantasmatic
constructs back to reality, but precisely by means of a social recognition of his
phantasm. By means of an analysis of the problems of the logic of unmasking, upon
which both Marxism and psychoanalysis are based, I hope to indicate that, given the
impossible coincidence between the real and the symbolic, one must seek to
understand phantasms not as dismissible screens, but rather in terms of their
effectivity.
I begin my subsequent readings with two chapters on Ramos’s novels Caetes
(1933) and Aneustia [Anguish] (1936). Chapter two focuses on Ramos’s first novel,
Caetes. and I attempt to examine how fantasies help the protagonist, Joao Valerio,
not only to draw a mental social topography, but also to guide him in his objective
social investments by means of a practical knowledge of the social world. As such,
the effectivity of Valerio’s fantasies is limited by the conditions of his social
position. In the first part of this chapter, I retrace the several appearances of the term
“fantasma” in the criticism of Ramos’s fiction. To a certain extent, that serves as an
initial background for both chapters two and three, and I show how the term is
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xxi
generally used in connection with the idea of a deformation, even in terms of a
deformation of the “authentic” social relations. In this sense, the notion of phantasm
is akin to the screen we saw within the logic of unmasking, and the idea of
deformation can become as limiting as specularity. To my mind, the one reading
that most clearly depicts the co-existence of phantasmatic constructs and objective
reality within the same space is Santa Rosa’s pictorial translation of Ramos’s novel,
and I also analyze it in this first part. The analysis of the novel itself comes in the
second part of the chapter, and I point out how Valerio is able to correct a probable
social devaluation, which he constructs in the first fantasy we read in his narrative,
by means of alternate phantasmatic and objective investments. Since he occupies an
ambiguous social position, he makes partial, multiple investments, but which turn
out to be profitable for him.
In Angustia. which I analyze in chapter three, Ramos reformulates, to a
certain degree, the situation that he constructs in his first novel. In both Caetes and
Angustia. he depicts a love triangle and the resolution of a rivalry between two
lovers, two social agents who occupy quite distinct positions within the social field.
Nonetheless, Luis da Silva’s position, in Angustia. is a lot more extreme than that of
Valerio in Caetes. for the latter maintains, unlike Luis da Silva, closer relationships
with those agents who occupy the dominant social positions. In this sense, one
might say that Ramos’s reformulation poses the following question: what would
happen to the effectivity of phantasms if the subject were even more decapitalized, if
the subject perceived no chances of realizing any profitable objective investments,
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xxii
and if his love object were interested not in breaking away from the constraints
of a well-established life, but rather in the luxury one benefits from economic
capital? Within Ramos’s narrative, the answer to this question is an anguished
subject, a subject who gradually fantasizes with and finally carries out one of the
most socially devalued acts: Luis da Silva assassinates his antagonist, Juliao Tavares.
Given Luis da Silva’s phantasmatic reconstruction of his social devaluation within
his narrative, the assassination is a sort of social prediction coming true. In chapter
three, I examine then how Luis da Silva’s perception of his social phantasmalization
is seen from the point of view of an even more ambiguous position, insofar as he
refuses to objectively invest in what might be a source of social capital, and
according to a psychotic logic.
My starting point for the first part of this chapter is thus Luis da Silva’s
vision of a social phantasmalization, which is not only made possible by his lack of
capital and his dominated social position, but also appears within a story of family
decadence. I follow thus Luis da Silva’s reconstruction of his social devaluation
both in terms of this story and in relation to indexes of devaluation, such as Luis da
Silva’s postures. His social devaluation might have been counterbalanced with a
stable social value if he had been able to embrace fully a logic one might call the
logic of the penny jar, which corresponds to the social position that is the most
accessible to him: that of low-capital agents. Since he is unable to do so, his
ambiguous social position appears to be fixed, for he can neither reject nor embrace
the logics corresponding to the social positions that are, or should have been, open to
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xxiii
him: the logic of personalism and the position of the “old” high-capital agent,
the logic of disinterestedness and the position of the cultural producer, and the logic
of revolution and the position of the leftist intellectual. In the second part of this
chapter, I reconstruct precisely Luis da Silva’s ambiguous relation with these logics
and positions, beginning, however, with the logic of “money begets money,”
characteristic of the “modern” high-capital agent, such as Juliao Tavares. Such logic
and position serve as a backdrop for all the other logics and positions. Finally, in the
last part of the chapter I analyze the psychotic logic whereby Luis da Silva is able, at
least phantasmatically, to counterpose his social phantasmalization.
To a certain extent, both of my readings of Ramos’s novels are central to this
dissertation because they are the ones in which I deal more specifically with the
question of the social conditions for the effectivity of phantasms. The reason for that
is quite simple: Ramos himself was a keen observer of both phantasmatic constructs
and objective social reality, which means that his texts lend themselves to a very fine
reading of the exchanges that we, as subjects and social agents, establish between
phantasms and the real. In this sense, the chapters on Ramos’s novels are the ones
that rely most heavily on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological writings, and I have
imported several of his terms into my readings. Like Bourdieu, I find economic
terms particularly illuminating because they allow us to account for these exchanges
between phantasms and the real. That does not mean to say, however, that importing
economic terms is a form of economism because, as Bourdieu’s theory of fields
evinces, different fields are structured according to particular laws. Although Ramos
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xxiv
does not portray in his novels the functioning of particular fields, his narrators
do construct a topography of the social field at large, inasmuch as they perceive how
they stand socially in relation to other characters. This is, in a sense, a practical
knowledge of the positions structuring the social field and of how both the narrators
and the other characters act in accordance with these positions.
In this respect, Bourdieu’s definition of objective social relations proves to be
quite useful, insofar as it delineates the relations between positions and social
powers. For him, objective relations are
relations between the positions occupied in the distributions of resources which
are or may become active, effective, like the trumps in a game of cards, in
competition for the appropriation of the rare goods of which this social universe
is the locus. These fundamental social powers are . .. economic capital, in its
different forms, and cultural capital, and also symbolic capital, a form which is
assumed by different kinds of capital when they are perceived and recognized as
legitimate. (“Social Space”
128)
In Ramos’s novels, both protagonists keenly perceive their lack of different forms of
capital (especially economic), sometimes through their failed investments in social
practices that might ultimately result profitable, sometimes by means of an attention
to social actions and signs.
In this sense, Bourdieu’s concepts of dispositions, habitus, and bodily hexis
also turn out to be valuable notions for our understanding of Ramos’s novels. For
Bourdieu, the habitus of a social agent is a set of dispositions, understood as “the
subjective basis of the perception and appreciation of the objective chances” that one
finds in fields (Field 64), and, as such, it guides agents in their practices. As “a long
process of inculcation, beginning in early childhood” (Johnson, Introduction 5), the
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XXV
habitus also involves the agent’s body. As John B. Thompson notes, “[i]t is
because the body has become a repository of ingrained dispositions that certain
actions, certain ways of behaving and responding, seem altogether natural”
(Introduction 13). Bourdieu thus speaks of a bodily hexis, meaning “a certain
durable organization of one’s body and of its deployment in the world” (Thompson
13). Although Bourdieu’s theory of fields finds a more immediate resonance in the
novels of Graciliano Ramos, his writings on politics and symbolic power have also
afforded me with critical tools with which to read the phantasms in Roa Bastos’s Yo.
el supremo H the Supreme! (1974), especially his examination of investiture as a
form of consecration. If, in Ramos’s novels, fantasies and phantasms mainly revolve
around a lack of different forms of capital, in Roa Bastos’s novel phantasms are the
result of political power, which the dictator concentrates.
In chapter four, I focus on the several phantasms that appear in Yo. el
supremo and which are related to the dictator’s power and the reappearance of the
author’s authority in the novel. In each section, I retrace one form of phantasm.
First, I examine El Supremo’s political investiture, which is evinced in the false
decree with which Roa Bastos’s novel begins. As El Supremo himself constantly
affirms, political investiture allows him to turn words into deeds. However, as the
false decree also indicates, political power may be contested and usurped as long as
new candidates for the post of Head of State possess the necessary qualifications.
Although El Supremo cultivated such qualifications in himself, he was also haunted
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xxvi
by the phantasm of deposition and makes use of different practices in order to
maintain himself in power, thereby producing several socio-political phantasms.
In the second section, I analyze the phantasmalization that results from
political praxis itself Even though politics is defined in relation to real actions and
facts, it is also marked by a certain degree of symbolization of political
representatives, such as El Supremo. This symbolization, as we shall see, stems
from a disjunction between the person and public figure, which El Supremo
represents by means of a distinction between “I” and “He,” objectified in social
symbols. As a dictator, El Supremo makes use of different forms of symbolization
of power, turning them into tactics and military strategies. That does not mean to say
that El Supremo welcomes phantasms. On the contrary, he is also haunted by the
possibility of becoming himself a phantasm, which would equate him to fictional
characters. In the third section, I show how El Supremo is haunted by this possible
phantasmalization, and I shall analyze two examples: his fear of the feminine as a
fear of an absolute impotence and his fear of substitutions, both political and
linguistic. Finally, in the last section I demonstrate how the compiler, haunted by the
dictator’s power, chooses to become a mere compiler rather than an author, who
disappears in the compiler’s last note. Such disappearance is, however, an apparent
one, for the author reappears in the text by means of a displacement of authorial
figures, in which Jorge Luis Borges plays a crucial role.
Having retraced the effectivity of phantasms in Ramos’s and Roa Bastos’s
fiction, I turn my attention in the last two chapters to the effectivity of phantasms in
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xxvii
Ramos’s and Roa Bastos’s non-fictional writings. In chapter five, I propose
that one of the aspects of the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of phantasmal characters
is the author’s sincere image, on the margins of which lie other authorial figures. I
begin the chapter then by reconstructing Ramos’s concept of phantasmal characters,
which appears in both a discourse he wrote as a member of the Brazilian Communist
Party and in the essay “O fator economico no romance brasileiro” [“Economic
Factors in Brazilian Novels”] (1945). In commenting on Ramos’s essay in Ensaio de
literatura brasileira (1976), Leticia Malard poses a question regarding the objective
of the essay and, in so doing, she might be pointing out a desired effect.
Nonetheless, precisely because she poses her question in terms of intention, she
cannot account for effects that result from investments, not personal intentions. And
I use as an example Ramos’s well-known self-depreciation, which Malard mentions
in order to dismiss her apparently malicious question. What matters, however, is that
her question evinces how sincerity is related to the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of
phantasmal characters. Sincerity, in this case, must be understood both as an
attention to social reality and the sincerity of the author, based on a coincidence
between person and author. I end the first part of the first chapter pointing out the
different names Ramos used, but which were unknown for many years. I also
indicate how these names call into question his sincere image, as Lucia Miguel
Pereira suggests with her idea of the “fundos de gaveta” [“bottom of the drawer”],
writings which only come to public after the author’s death.
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xxviii
In the second part of the chapter, I focus on Ramos’s juvenile writings
and his adoption of a Romantic aesthetics, which informs the title of the journal he
published with his cousin: O diluculo [Dawn]. Within Brazilian Romanticism, the
association between dawn and childhood points to a fascination with an arrest of
time, which represents a form of opposing the progression of life and its
disillusionments. The topos of disillusionment appears in Ramos’s first piece in O
diluculo and, although Ramos states that his mentor greatly altered his piece, he did
publish Romantic poems a few years after. In these poems, phantasms of lost lovers
are housed. In the last part of the chapter, I retrace Ramos’s investments in different
literary genres, which occurred after he moved to Rio de Janeiro. In the articles he
wrote for newspapers, for example, Ramos displays an ironic vein that was a
common stylistic feature in newspapers of the time. Although a biographic tragedy
and changes in the contemporary poetic aesthetics may have distanced Ramos from
literature and turned Romantic poetry less current, a Romantic aesthetics did not
disappear completely from Ramos’s writings. I end this part then analyzing Ramos’s
love letters, pointing out how pseudonymity and privacy might be strategies a writer
may use to forge authorial figures.
In my last chapter, I retrace the symbolic struggles between Augusto Roa
Bastos and Alfredo Stroessner, through which the Paraguayan writer may have
maintained a certain social value against the socio-political phantasmalization he was
subjected to. In the first section, I analyze Roa Bastos’s essays on exile. His basic
idea lies in a distinction between inner and outer exile, which leads to other
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xxix
dichotomies: autonomy/heteronomy, authenticity/inauthenticity, and
reality/unreality. Through these dichotomies, Roa Bastos arrives at the notion of a
“derealization” of the country and its citizens. In exile, Paraguayans not only
became phantasms, but they also started producing phantasms, such as the notions of
a lost origin or a never changing home. In his critique of what he calls a pathological
yearning for a lost origin, Roa Bastos projects the possibility of establishing, in the
future, a basis for Paraguayan culture, which must, of necessity, traverse the
experience of exile. In the second and third sections, I analyze Stroessner’s political
discourses and Roa Bastos’s essays in reply to the “stronista” regime, respectively.
Since, as I point out at the beginning of each section, in both cases their definition of
democracy is based upon a general concept, what is at stake is in their struggle is not
actually this definition. I therefore examine, in continuation, the question of the
strategies both speakers use in order to claim legitimacy for their discourses and for
themselves as national representatives. I end the dissertation with a note on Roa
Bastos’s attempt to propose a national cultural forum to the Paraguayan congress.
In most chapters, what one finds are detailed readings of texts, requiring
from readers, as much as it did from myself, a wild patience.
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XXX
Notes
1 The idea that waiting is, by definition, an anticipation is what organizes
Antonio Candido’s essay “Quatro esperas” [“Four Waitings”] (1972), in which the
critic analyzes four texts dealing with waiting: Constantine Cavafy’s “Waiting for
the Barbarians,” Franz Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China,” Dino Buzzatti’s The
Tartar Steppe, and Julien Gracq’s The Opposing Shore. Since all four texts deal with
imminent military invasions, the concept of anticipation becomes quite a relevant
one, even if, as in Buzzatti’s novel, “there are no visible, or even probable, enemies”
(53). But even in that case, there is still “an illusion of real and constant danger ....
Because of this, they all live in a permanent state of anticipation, which is at the
same time hope, the hope of one day being able to justify life and have an
opportunity to shine” (53).
2 Romero’s book, which is an appreciation of Machado de Assis’s works, was
published in Rio de Janeiro in 1897.
For Bourdieu’s comments on economism in relation to his theory of fields,
see The Rules of Art. p. 183.
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1 . The Logic of Unmasking
1
Hitherto men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about
themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged
their relationships according to their ideas o f God, o f normal man, etc. The
phantoms of their brains have got out o f their hands. They, the creators, have
bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the
ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away. Let
us revolt against the rule of thoughts.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (1845-1846)
Once the picture emerges from the memory we can hear the patient state that as he
proceeds to describe it, it proportionately fades away and becomes indistinct; the
patient wears it off, so to speak, by transforming it into words.. .. [B]ut at other
times such a picture, in spite of its having been described, remains persistently
before the inner eye o f the patient, and I take this as a sign that he still has
something important to tell me concerning its theme. As soon as this has been
accomplished, the picture disappears like a wandering spirit returning to rest.
Sigmund Freud, “The Psychotherapy o f Hysteria” in Studies in Hysteria
(1895)
In Mary McCarthy’s The Group (1954), one of the characters in the novel,
Gus, undergoes psychoanalytical treatment, yielding to his ex-wife’s insistence on
salvaging their marriage. According to him, in psychoanalysis “[yjou’re supposed to
dredge up stuff from your unconscious” (269). As is often the case with these
insights that common knowledge affords us, Gus’s short, plain-talk explanation of
the psychoanalytical treatment is quite accurate. He succinctly depicts the logic that
organizes the psychoanalytical investigation of the unconscious, a logic that
psychoanalysis shares with Marxism. Both theories are based upon a logic of
unmasking whereby the real, whether it be class struggle or sexual drives, is seen as
hidden underneath something that obstructs our view: ideology, for Marx; fantasies,
for Freud. In both cases, ideology and fantasies appear to Marx and Freud as
phantoms, wandering spirits that Marxism and psychoanalysis, through practices
based upon the logic of unmasking, might finally make disappear. In this chapter, I
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2
pursue precisely the importance of this logic of unmasking for our perception of
phantasms, and I also attempt to show the unfolding of this logic.
In the first part of the chapter, I will focus on how the logic of unmasking
makes evident a gap between the objective and the symbolic worlds. I will take as
my starting point Rama’s text La ciudad letrada, in which he sees Latin American
men of letters as acting phantasmagorically. I first read Rama’s concept within the
context of La ciudad letrada itself, pointing out how Rama’s text is informed by
different formulations of this symbolic gap: the notion of a disjunction between Latin
American social reality and its cultural production; Foucault’s idea of the Classical
episteme: and Marx’s concept of alienation. Whether or not we agree with Rama’s
conflation of Marx’s materialism with Foucault’s discourse analysis as a way of
accounting for the ties of intellectuals to power, La ciudad letrada makes evident an
important point. Precisely because of that conflation, Rama’s text allows us to
perceive, more clearly, how phantasmatic constructs are based on the gap that exists
between the symbolic and the objective worlds.
Nonetheless, the problem of the logics of unmasking is that, in its attempt at
unmasking the real, it tends towards a closing of the gap, representing thus an
essentialism in which symbolic and objective forms coincide. This is the second
point that I make in this first part, and I use Althusser’s attempts to turn Marx into a
“true” Marxist and Foucault’s critique of the concept of ideology as signs of this
tendency, within Marxist theory, towards essentialism. Although not so evident as in
Marxism, the logic of unmasking and its tendency to essentialism are also present in
Foucault’s The Order of Things, which is one of the bases of Rama’s text. However,
as Foucault’s research moved towards the question of power more specifically, he
adopts a quasi geographical point of view in order to perceive mechanisms of power.
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3
The third and last point that I make in this first part is precisely that Foucault shares
with Althusser and Bourdieu a general viewpoint, which I have called a
topographical point of view. It is this topographical point of view, whether it be
applied to the space of objective or phantasmatic relations, that allows us to see the
effectivity of phantasms.
In the second part of this chapter, focusing on Freud’s psychoanalytical
theory, I retrace, first, how Freud reached a cul-de-sac in his attempt to reveal the
real behind phantasms. I take as my starting point Freud’s distrust in his neurotica,
which led Freud to perceive the psychic structure in the form of strata, on the bottom
of which would lie the truth of phantasms. Nonetheless, what Freud also discovers is
that he cannot reach that bottom without pursuing precisely what appears to be
hiding what he calls the nucleus of the pathogenic organization. Phantasms become
then an impediment and at the same time the only possible route to that nucleus. But
how can one resolve this contradiction? For Freud, the answer lies in a temporary
suspension of judgment, which, however, only transfers the question of truth from
the reality of events to that of phantasmatic constructs. Pursuing the truth of these
phantasms, Freud imposes a regressive direction to psychoanalysis, which ultimately
ends in a cul-de-sac in which he can ascertain neither the reality of events nor the
real of phantasms.
After tracing this path to this cul-de-sac, I pursue the question of what is left
of psychoanalysis after this apparent disappearance of the real behind phantasms.
What one finds, then, is that psychoanalysis becomes the construction of a narrative.
As such, it is based upon the rhetorical strategies that commonly organize a text. I
shall analyze, as an example, the strategies that Freud uses in his interpretation of a
dream. If, however, psychoanalysis turns out to be the textual construction of a
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4
narrative, the truth of phantasms becomes a question of belief, of credibility, of the
credit we invest in them. It entails, then, a negotiation that, within the
psychoanalytical practice itself, takes the form of a specular recognition. What I
suggest at the end of the chapter is that one should not let himself be blinded by this
disappearance of the real into this specular recognition, for one must also account for
another phantasm: psychoanalysis itself. The vanishing real of phantasms is also the
concomitant construction of another phantasm, psychoanalysis, which effectively
takes place within the real. In this sense, as the very last part of the chapter
indicates, Freud’s phantasm is not so different from that of artists.
1.1. Acting Phantasmagorically: The Symbolic Gap
Aimque nuestro asunto es la cultura urbana en America Latina, en la
medida en que ella se asienta sobre bases materiales no podemos dejar de consignar
esta oscura trama economica que establece poderosas dependencias sucesivas, al
grado de que numerosas acciones decisivas que afectan a las producciones
culturales, corresponden a operaciones que casi llamariamos inconscientes, que se
trazan y resuelven fuera del conocimiento y de la comprension de quienes no son
sino pasivos ejecutantes de lejanlsimas ordenes, quienes parecen actuar
fantasmagoricamente como si efectivamente hubieran sido absorbidos por ese orden
de los signos que ya no necesita de la coyuntura real para articularse, pues derivan
sobre sus encadenamientos intemos, solo capaces de justificarse dentro de ellos.
*
Angel Rama, La ciudad letrada (1984)
Angel Rama’s depiction of the acts of men of letter as apparently
phantasmagoric is positioned at the conjunction of two different (although related)
sets of problems. On the one hand, in his analysis Rama retraces the extent to which
and the reasons why Latin American intellectuals’ ties to power have remained, in
“Although our chief interest is the urban culture o f Latin America, we cannot but note, because it
rests on material bases, that obscure economic web that establishes successive dependencies so
powerful that numerous decisive actions that affect cultural production correspond to operations that
one could almost call unconscious and that are drawn up and resolved outside the knowledge and
understanding o f those who appear to act phantasmagorically, as if they had actually been absorbed
by this order of signs that no longer needs the real situation in order to be articulated, for they stem
from their own internal chains, which can only be justified from within.”
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5
his eyes, practically unbroken since the sixteenth century. Rama’s analysis is
situated within a general critique of the critique of power that intellectuals have
developed.1 Specifically, his portrayal of the phantasmagoric in La ciudad letrada
IThe Lettered City] (1984) may be seen as a concept whereby the very efficacy of
the intellectuals’ critique of power is often contested. Nonetheless, Rama’s focus on
the phantasmatic also touches on another problem: that of the phantasm itself, that is,
the product of any phantasmatic activity. In La ciudad letrada. the literary
representations of both the past and the future cities at the turn of the nineteenth to
the twentieth century, for instance, are conceived as “una invention ilusoria” (106)*
and “obra del deseo y la imagination” (107),* respectively. To a certain extent,
Rama recognizes the specificity of the literary when he states that literature “no esta
sometida a la prueba de la verdad, sus proposiciones no pueden ser enfrentadas con
los hechos extemos; solo pueden ser juzgadas interiormente, relacionando unas con
otras dentro del texto y por lo tanto registrando su coherencia mas que su exactitud
historica” (107).* Nonetheless, he also affirms that “no hay texto que no este
determinado por una situacion de presente y cuyas perspectivas estructurantes no
partan de las condiciones especlficas de esa situacion” (106).§ This apparent
contradiction — that literature is autonomous while at the same time determinded by
a present situation — must be understood in terms of a conflation of different theories
that postulate a fissure between symbolic production and the real: Michel Foucault’s
conception of a split between things and words, developed in Les mots et les choses
“an illusory invention.”
* “product of desire and imagination”
1 “is not subject to truth-value; its propositions cannot be measured up against external facts; they can
only be judged from within and by relating one to the other within the text, thus registering their
coherence rather than their historical accuracy.”
§ “there is no text which is not determined by a present situation and whose structuring perspectives
do not stem from the specific conditions o f this situation.”
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6
[The Order of Things! (1966); the Latin American notion of a gap between social
reality and cultural production; and the Marxist concept of alienation. By conflating
these theories, Rama is able to articulate the phantasm, understood here as those
illusory or imaginary constructions, in such a way that it remains within the frame of
literature’s autonomy while at the same time springing, firstly, from the disparity
between the “real city” and the “lettered city” and, secondly, from the intellectuals’
co-optation by power f
If, as Rama argues, urban development in Latin America is to be understood
in terms of this disparity between the “real city” and what he calls “la ciudad letrada”
— meaning the different types of discourses that plan, codify and order the city on the
basis of the symbolic character of speech — , the analytical focus must necessarily
shift from the materiality of the geographic or the architectural city to the symbolic
quality of the “lettered city,” whose maps, plans, or texts always precede the
existence of the “real city.” The ordering of the social world thus becomes an act of
reading these maps, plans, or texts the “lettered city” produces. In this sense, the
men of letters appear to be situated within the sphere of power, for they are the
producers of this “lettered” ordering of the social space, forming “el anillo protector
del poder y el ejecutor de sus ordenes” (33).* The men of letters, in their capacity as
holders of a specific knowledge, not only partake of power by means of the
reproduction of power relations that the ordering of the city promotes, but also
become “duenos” [owners] of a certain power through the institutionalization of their
function as intellectuals (38-39). In Rama’s eyes, if this double relationship between
the men of letters and power allows for the relative autonomy the “lettered city”
maintains in relation to power, it is because it stems precisely from the disparity
* “the ring protecting power and the executor o f its orders.”
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7
between the “real city” and the “lettered city,” which the autonomy of the order of
signs made possible.
Drawing on Michel Foucault’s formulation of the Classical episteme in The
Order of Things, Rama contends that the ordering of the city and of the social world
was only possible because, at the turn of the sixteenth to the seventeenth century,
when cities were being founded in the New World, the straight ties that bound
together words and things were broken. The coincidence between this
epistemological discontinuity between the Renaissance and the Classical Age, when
“[t]he written word and things no longer resemble one another” (Foucault, Order of
Things 48), and the colonialist enterprise that structures the disparity between the
“real city” and the “lettered city” is what allows Rama to formulate the apparently
phantasmatic character of the men of letters. To the question of why Latin American
intellectuals have remained, since the sixteenth century, affiliated with power even
when they performed a critique of power, sometimes from social spaces opposed to
power, the answer lies not only in the lack of material conditions, but also, and most
importantly, in the aforesaid autonomy.
On the one hand, the men of letters, like writers, could only gain a relative
independence from power when a market of cultural goods emerged. But it is the
coincidence between the autonomy of the order of signs and the material base of
power structures that generates, on the other hand, the impression that the men of
letters act “phantasmagorically,” as mere executors of distant orders. The material
bases of colonialism, in forging a series of concentric dependencies, give birth to this
particular power structure in which the men of letters are twice distanced from the
political and economical decision-making centers. However, Rama adds, the
concept of language as an autonomous, arbitrary system makes it possible for the
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8
ordering of the city to become an ideology that legitimates power. In this double
relationship, the men of letters may allow themselves to be “absorbed,” to use
Rama’s term, by both the order of signs and power structures.
In late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the first signs of
discontentment with the revolutionary republican ideal begin to appear, Latin
American men of letters fully formulate a soon-to-become hegemonic discourse on
the discrepancy between their cultural/symbolic production and the social order.
Rama’s opposition between the “lettered” and the “real” cities should also be read
within that context. One finds in La ciudad letrada. for example, references to a
number of Latin American men of letters who were engaged in the formulation of
that discourse.3 One also finds a series of dichotomies -- such as written/oral speech
(17), the physical order/the order of signs (19), writing/social life (50), the
prescriptive minuteness of the law/the anarchic confusion of society (51), the
language of the public sphere/the language of everyday life (51-52) - that, as a
logical unfolding of the original dichotomy between cultural/symbolic production
and the social order, reinforces that very discourse in which the original dichotomy is
postulated, even if only by simply re-appropriating it. One must note, however, that
this group of dichotomies that constitute, within Rama’s text, Latin America’s
founding discrepancies is not articulated in terms of a critique of the Latin American
elite’s Europeanization, as in the aforementioned discourse. Instead, Rama
formulates it according to a logic not unlike that of base and superstructure, in that
the planes that separate the dichotomic terms must be understood in terms of a space
between cultural and economic structures. For Rama, the life of the order of signs is
situated over [“por encima de”] the life of the physical order (19) and, in colonial
Latin America, “la estructura cultural flotaba sobre esta economica, reproduciendola
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9
sutilmente” (27).* This space between the two structures can only be maintained
through the processes of institutionalization and ideologization that are part and
parcel of an overarching structure in which the subject is nothing but an always-
replaceable agent and the colonial subject, more specifically, never a subject, but
always a phantasm, that is, an alienated subject.
It is from the standpoint of alienation as a form of space that Rama’s
interpretation of the “lettered city” as the privileged locus for the phantasmatic
character of the men of letters is largely informed by Marxist theory. From the
manuscripts of 1844 to Capital. Marx’s critique of political economy is based on the
notion of a space or a disjunction between men and what they produce, a space that
must be conceived as producing illusory forms of consciousness, although, in what
concerns objective economic relations under capitalism, it cannot in itself be
understood as illusion. For, as Ernest Mandel notes in relation to fetishism, it is “an
objective necessity and compulsion” within the capitalist mode of production of
commodities (74). Hence, the space that is characteristic of colonialism, that is, the
appropriation of the colony’s production by the metropolis, produces (and is
produced by) men of letters who, due to their detachment from social “reality,”
reproduce the fundamental economic alienation by way of illusory forms of
consciousness.
This is what Marx and Engels postulate in The German Ideology when they
say that “[djivision of labour only becomes truly such from the moment when a
division of material and mental labour appears” (51). According to them, “[f]rom
this moment onwards consciousness can really flatter itself that it is something other
than consciousness of existing practice, that it really represents something without
* “the cultural structure floated above the economic one, subtly reproducing it.”
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10
representing something real; from now on consciousness is in a position to
emancipate itself from the world and to proceed to the formation of ‘pure’ theory,
theology, philosophy, ethics, etc.” (51-52). One should note, however, that even
though these “pure” forms of consciousness come “into contradiction with the
existing relations, this can only occur because existing social relations have come
into contradiction with existing forces of production” (52).
Thus, not only do ideologists act “phantasmatically,” that is, within structures
that operate independently of them, but they also produce “phantasms,” the “pure”
philosophy Marx and Engels criticized in the Young Hegelians or the illusory cities
Rama refers to in La ciudad letrada. When Marx and Engels, in the “Preface” to The
German Ideology, call the “false conceptions” created by men “phantoms of their
brains” (37), they are in fact enunciating one of the postulates of The German
Ideology, which will reappear in the text under similar terms, such as “chimeras”
(37), “imaginary beings” (37), “spectres” (52 and 58), “apparitions” (58), “fancies”
(58), “fantasy” (41 and 100), and “fantastic” (47, 55, and 119). Likewise, in Capital
Marx inserts this notion of the phantasmatic within his more lengthy analysis of the
laws that regulate the capitalist mode of production. If, under capitalism,
commodities must be abstracted from their use-values in order to be exchanged and
if “the social character and the social relations between the individual workers”
appear as “relations between material objects” (168-69), the notion of the
phantasmatic serves as an indicator of the space or gap that is created between one
and the other of these terms (see, for instance, Marx’s use of the term “phantom”
[128] and “fantastic” [165 and 170] in Capital).4
Nonetheless, one of the problems posed by the notion of phantasm is its
resistance to critique, the impression that phantasms do not completely vanish, but
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11
rather keep reappearing. This impression is evident in the leftist intellectuals’
actions within the field of social and political struggles, where the Marxist
interpretive model seemed to be sapped by the apparent “failure” of leftist critiques
and political practices.5 In reassessing the critical potential of Marxism within the
Latin American context, one must take into account the fact that this apparent failure
took place despite the analytical acuity that the concepts of alienation and ideology
might afford for an understanding of the structures that produced and reproduced the
intellectuals’ ties to power. One must also bear in mind that such a failure occurred
despite the possible and all-too-logical conflation between Marxism and the Latin
American notion of a discrepancy between social reality and cultural production, a
conflation that is possible because both theories are informed by a dichotomy
between the real and the illusory.6 Why, in other words, did ideology critique not
result in successful revolutionary political practices? Why did intellectuals, even
when engaged in revolutions, as Rama points out, remain bound to power? Why,
within the context of Latin America, did dictatorships reemerge throughout most of
the twentieth century, and, most importantly, why were they not met with an
equivalent reaction?
As Rama himself indicates, the answer to these questions apparently lies in
an understanding of “la capacidad del poder de reproducirse a si mismo” (153).* In
terms of Marxist theory, it was necessary to perform a critique of ideology critique,
given that the concepts of ideology critique or alienation readily lend themselves to
essentialism and that Marxism, in its own dialectical movement, tends to a closing of
the gap, a coincidence between the producers and what they produce and, ultimately,
to a resolution of the contradiction, so that the self coincides with itself. Such a
“tiie capacity o f power to reproduce itself.”
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12
tendency of Marxism is evinced in both the later developments of Marxist theory
and in the critique of Marxism, as in Althusser’s attempts to distinguish between
ideology and science (and also between pre-Marxist idealism and Marxism, between
the Young Marx and Marx, or between the 1844 Manuscripts and Capital) and in
Foucault’s rejection of the concept of ideology for an appropriate understanding of
power.
For Althusser, the distinction between ideology and science must be
understood in terms of an “epistemological break,” which he situates around 1845
(corresponding to the writing of the Theses on Feuerbach and The German
Ideology), that is, in terms of a discontinuity between Hegelianism and
Feuerbachianism, on the one hand, and Marxism, on the other. Alienation thus
becomes for Althusser an ideological concept because it stems from a philosophy of
the essence of Man, a philosophy conceived from within Hegelianism. As Althusser
himself defines it, “[t]he Hegelian totality is the alienated development of a simple
unity, of a simple principle, itself a moment of the development of the Idea: so,
strictly speaking, it is the phenomenon, the self-manifestation of this simple principle
which persists in all its manifestations, and therefore even in the alienation which
prepares its restoration” (203). It is, in short, a philosophy that conjugates essence
and phenomenon through a relation of truth, that is, through what Althusser calls the
“Hegelian theme ofphenomenon-essence-truth o f (111).
In order to avoid Hegelian essentialism, Althusser states that Marx “gave us,
not the ‘truth’ in the Hegelian sense, but the principles of its scientific
understanding” (55). Although Althusser is correct is affirming that, from a Marxist
perspective, there can be no relation of truth, in the Hegelian sense, between the
phenomenon and the essence, since this relation is always traversed by the
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13
“deformation” (Althusser’s term) performed by ideology, it is not evident that
what Marxist theory produces is scientific understanding and not the truth. Marxist
truth, I would say, emerges out of a specific logic I shall call the logic of unmasking.
It is a logic founded by a strategy of cognition characteristic of modem
epistemology, namely, the intent to reveal, under a false appearance, its hidden
truth.7 Althusser himself, in certain passages in his argumentation, appears to
envisage the result of scientific understanding as the truth. According to Althusser,
“[f]or Marx, [ideas] were concrete objects which he interrogated as the physicist
does the objects of his experiments, to draw from them a little of the tmth, their
truth” (73).
The possibility of attaining the truth is precisely what Foucault criticizes in
the concept of ideology. For Foucault, the limits of an analysis of power based on
ideology rest on the fact that this concept “always stands in virtual opposition to
something else which is supposed to count as tmth”; that it “refers . . . to something
of the order of a subject”; and that it “stands in a secondary position relative to
something which functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic
determinant, etc.” (Power/Knowledge 118). Indeed, the return to the real proposed
by Marxist theory, at least in its first stage, ultimately calls for an utterance of the
tmth. Not unlike Marx and Engels’s insistence in The German Ideology on a
distinction between the real and the illusory, Althusser distinguishes between “the
problems posed by the ideologue” and the “real problems” (67, n. 30) or between the
latter and “philosophical problems,” which he sees as “the deformation of real
historical problems” (80, n. 45). Since these “real problems” are concealed by (if not
under) ideology, what Marxism ultimately realizes is a “restoration, recuperation and
restitution of a reality which had been stolen and made unrecognizable by ideology”
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14
(49). It recurs, in other words, to what I have defined as the logic of unmasking.
Althusser’s use of that logic is evident, for example, in his explanation of how one
may come to comprehend a problematic. For him,
a problematic cannot generally be read like an open book, it must be dragged up
from the depths of the ideology in which it is buried but active, and usually
despite the ideology itself, its own statements and proclamations. Anyone who
is prepared to go this far w ill. . . feel obliged to stop confusing the materialist
proclamations of certain ‘materialists’ (above all Feuerbach) with materialism
itself. There is much to suggest that this would clarify some problems and
dissipate other, false, problems. (69)
Derived from the logic of unmasking, this analytical strategy of “dredging up stuff’ -
- to borrow Gus’s apt expression in Mary McCarthy’s The Group, is not, as one
might think, altogether absent from Foucault’s own writings. In fact, his concept of
“archaeology” tends to a certain stratification not altogether dissimilar to the one that
establishes, within Marxist theory, a difference regarding the levels or depths of the
ideological and the real, where the latter is always subsumed beneath the former.
At the end of his “Preface” to The Order of Things. Foucault states that he is
“attempting to uncover the deepest strata of Western Culture” and that, in so doing,
he is “restoring to our silent and apparently immobile soil its rifts, its instability, its
flaws” (xxiv). Likewise, he describes the concept of “subjugated knowledges” as
“the historical contents that have been buried and disguised in a functionalist
coherence or formal systemisation” (Power/Knowledge 81). Within this theoretical
frame, criticism aims at “reveal[ing]” these subjugated knowledges, at fostering their
“re-emergence” or “re-appearance” and at “rediscovering] the ruptural effects of
conflict and struggle that the order imposed by functionalist or systematising thought
is designed to mask” (82; emphasis mine). Although Foucault’s stratification does
not necessarily imply an unmasking of “the truth,” it does, at times, verge on
9
essentialism. In The Order of Things, for example, he conceives of a “middle
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15
region which liberates order itself’ (xxi) and which is located between the cultural
codes that order the world for each individual and the scientific thought that explains
order. According to Foucault,
[t]his middle region . . in so far as it makes manifest the modes of being of
order, can be posited as the most fundamental of all: anterior to words,
perceptions, and gestures, which are then taken to be more or less exact, more
or less happy, expressions of it. . more solid, more achaic, less dubious,
always more ‘true’ than the theories that attempt to give those expressions
explicit form .... Thus, in every culture, between the use of what one might
call the ordering codes and reflections upon order itself, there is the pure
experience of order and of its modes of being, (xxi)
One could only establish a certain neutrality concerning the terms Foucault uses if
one disregarded the connotations they bear and the fact that the stratification
Foucault establishes points to a concept of origin that draws close to that of essence.
For his proposed stratification is grounded both in the notions of fundament,
anteriority, and archaism and in a comparative scale in which the “pure” is more than
the “impure” in terms of the relative degree of the specific quality being compared.
The “pure experience of order,” in other words, is closer to an ontology of order (if it
is not that ontology itself) than the other two regions. In this sense, Foucault’s
archaeology is a method of disclosing the ontology of a specific period in time,
which justifies Bourdieu’s analogy between Foucault’s concept of the episteme and
Hegelianism (Rules of Art 198).
Only when Foucault becomes more clearly bent on the question of power,
focusing on the effectivity of discourses and the capillary effects of power on
individuals, does he make use of a spacial conception different from the quasi-
geological stratification that approximates his mode of thought to an essentialism
directed towards a buried origin. His attention, then, turns to the manner in which
mechanisms of power enable it to “[reach] into the very grain of individuals, [touch]
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16
their bodies and [insert] itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses,
learning processes and everyday lives” (Power/Knowledge 39). As the editors of
Herodote point out in their discussion with Foucault, for the French philosopher
these mechanisms of power must be understood neither as the overexertion of the
King’s will nor as the overextention of one’s rights as established in a specific
contract between two or more parties (71). Rather, Foucault sees them as “the
dissemination of micro-powers, a dispersed network of apparatuses without a single
organising system, centre or focus, a transverse co-ordination of disparate
institutions and technologies" (71). Moreover, these mechanisms of power, which
are exercised “within the social body, rather than from above it” (39), do not
preclude knowledge; they are, on the contrary, produced by it, hence Foucault’s
insistence on a constant articulation between knowledge and power. According to
him, “[t]he exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely,
knowledge constantly induces effects of power” (52).
This articulation between power and knowledge is evinced through what I
shall call a topographical view of knowledge: “once knowledge can be analysed in
terms of region, domain, implantation, displacement, transposition, one is able to
capture the process by which knowledge functions as a form of power and
disseminates the effects of power” (69). Through this topographical view, Foucault
is led “to consider forms of domination designated by such notions as field, region
and territory" (69), which are also applied to the articulation between discourses and
power. For Foucault, “[e]ndeavouring . . . to decipher discourse through the use of
spatial, strategic metaphors enables one to grasp precisely the points at which
discourses are transformed in, through and on the basis of relations of power" (70).
It is, I would argue, this topographical view that allows different intellectuals to map
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17
specific locations by means of their relation to other locations within a determined
space. As Althusser notes in relation to the Marxist “spatial metaphor” of
superstructure and infrastructure, “a topography represents in a definite space the
respective sites occupied by several realities” (“Ideology” 135, n.5).1 0
In For Marx. Althusser resorts to a topographical view when he employs the
notions of ideological and theoretical fields to situate, within Marxism, the young
Marx’s writings and Marx’s inversion of Hegelian dialectic, formulated in the
“Postface to the Second Edition” of Capital (“the ideal is nothing but the material
world reflected in the mind of man, and translated into forms of thought” [Marx,
Capital 102]). In order to comprehend the questions Marx raises in both his early
writings and in the “Postface,” Althusser argues, one must attain “an effective
knowledge of the substance and structure” of the basic ideological field in relation to
which “the (internal) unity of a single thought” stands (64). For it is with the
existing ideological field that a particular author, as Althusser puts it, “must settle
accounts in his own thought” (66). That does not mean to say, however, that the
young Marx’s debate with Hegelianism, for instance, was an “ideal” debate. On the
contrary, the young Marx’s “fate” “was decided by concrete ideological characters
on whom the ideological context imposed determinate features which do not
necessarily coincide with their literal historical identities (e.g. Hegel), which are
much more extensive than the explicit representations Marx gave them ...” (65).
Thus, Althusser claims that the Hegel Marx fought against was not “the library
Hegel we can meditate on in the solitude of 1960,” but “the Hegel of the neo-
Hegelian movement, a Hegel already summoned to provide German intellectuals of
the 1840s with the means to think their own histoiy and their own hopes; a Hegel
already made to contradict himself, invoked against himself, in despite of himself’
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18
(65). Similarly, in order for one to understand the inversion of Hegelian dialectic
as a problem, one must take into account a “definition of the field of (theoretical)
knowledges in which the problem is posed (situated), of the exact location of its
posing, and of the concepts required to pose it” (164-65).
Both Althusser’s and Foucault’s use of a topographical point of view are
instances of “‘systemic’ analyses . .. based on transposition of the phonological
model” (Bourdieu, Field 32). More specifically, they “[p]ursu[e] a logic that is
entirely characteristic of symbolic structuralism” in their attempt to establish “the
relations of interdependence which link [a product] to other products (32-33).
Although Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory differs fundamentally from this logic
of structuralism, in that “it refuses to consider the field of position-takings in itself
and for itself, i.e., independently of the field of positions which it manifests” (32), it
is, just like Althusser’s and Foucault’s structuralism, a relational mode of thought
grounded in a sort of overarching topographical point of view. In “Social Space and
Symbolic Power,” Bourdieu notes that social science oscillates between two
apparently mutually exclusive points of view, objectivism and subjectivism (124),
whose opposition his work is intended to transcend by realizing a double analytical
movement that puts objectivism and subjectivism in a dialectical relation:
on the one hand, the objective structures which the sociologist constructs in the
objectivist moment, by setting aside the subjective representations of the agents,
are the basis of subjective representations and they constitute the structural
constraints which influence interactions; but, on the other hand, these
representations also have to be remembered if one wants to account above all
for the daily individual and collective struggles which aim at transforming or
preserving these structures. (125-26)
The starting point for this transcendence is hence the adoption of a relational mode
of thought, which, like that of modern physics or mathematics, structuralism applied
to the social world." Thus, “[sjociology, in its objectivist moment, is a social
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19
topology, an analysis situs . . ., an analysis of relative positions and objective
relations between these positions” (126). What this analysis situs represents,
cognitively, is an abandonment of the essentialism that pervades both Marxism and
Foucault’s analysis in The Order of Things, without, however, dismissing the
inevitable space that exists between the symbolic and the world of objective reality.
Instead of unmasking the real, what one must do, if one follows a topographical
point of view, is to draw the map of the spaces of objective and phantasmatic
relations.
From a topographical point of view, one might say that the gap between the
symbolic and the world of objective relations is inevitable and that, in this space,
phantasms wander around. Through this image, what I intend to evince is that the
gap that Rama points out, via Marx and Foucault, is precisely the gap that
symbolization produces. Such a gap is most evident if we consider the production of
cultural goods, which cannot be dissociated from the production of symbolic value.
As Bourdieu notes, “[i]f it is all too obvious that the price of a picture is not
determined by the sum of the production costs . . . and if works of art provide a
golden example for those who seek to refute Marx’s labour theory of value . . ., this
is perhaps because we wrongly define . . . the process of production” (Field 76).
Rather than equating cultural production with the production of commodities in
general, one must realize that “[cjultural production distinguishes itself from the
production of the most common objects in that it must produce not only the object in
its materiality, but also the value of this object, that is, the recognition of artistic
legitimacy” (Bourdieu, Field 164).
One should not, however, take this distinction between the production of
cultural and ordinary goods as being based on the notion of two mutually excluding
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modes of production, namely material and symbolic production. Rather, the
general production of goods ought to be aprehended, as Bourdieu suggests,
according to a “continuum which goes from the simple fabricated object, tool or
piece of clothing to the consecrated work of art” (Rules of Art 172). Within this
continuum, “[ajrtistic production, notably in the pure form in which it appears at the
core of a field of production which has achieved a high degree of autonomy,
represents one of the limits of the possible forms of productive activity” (Rules of
Art 171), that is, the one in which symbolic production far exceeds material
production. Indeed, as Bourdieu rightly notes, the production of goods with a “weak
or nugatory symbolic import” is “undoubtedly increasingly rare in the era of design”
(Rules of Art 172).
If any consumer is able nowadays to recognize the distinction between brand
names, it is because he is capable, in practice, of recognizing that he will be
profiting, in purchasing a brand-name product, not only from the product’s use-
value, but also from its symbolic value. In this sense, symbolic value is a group
investment, which consists of all those who find a material or symbolic profit in
investing in it. Group investments constitute a form of belief, precisely because
symbolic value signifies a surplus in relation to both use and exchange-value. If
symbolic value is a credit that investors give it, one might also think the effectivity
of phantasms in terms of credibility, the belief that I have just mentioned. Any
investor who, being involved in phantasmatic constructions, is not able to produce
also the credibility of his phantasms is more likely than others to fail in his
enterprise. Freud did not.
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1.2. Freud’s Public Theater: The Vanishing Real
21
It is as though the patient were saying: ‘Yes, that’s all very nice and interesting, and
I’ll be very glad to go on with it Anther. It would change my illness a lot if it were
true. But I don’t in the least believe that it is true; and, so long as I don’t believe it,
it makes no difference to my illness. ’
Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1917)
In his famous letter to Wilhelm Fliess, dated September 21, 1897, Freud
declared that he “no longer believe[d] in [his] neurotica” (Origins 215). For,
although “blame was laid [in every case] on perverse acts by the father,” Freud had
to admit that “it was hardly credible that perverted acts against children were so
general” (215-16). If it is true, as Laplanche and Pontalis note, that, “[f]rom its
earliest days, psychoanalysis has been concerned with the material of fantasy”
(“Fantasy” 1), the Freudian distrust in the neurotics’ recounting of sexual advances
perpetrated by the father represents a turning-point within that psychoanalytical
concern. For one must then reconsider the question of truth in psychoanalysis. As
Freud notes in his History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, “[influenced by
Charcot’s view of the traumatic origin of hysteria, one was readily inclined to accept
as true and aetiologically significant the statements made by patients in which they
ascribed their symptoms to . . . seduction” (16). Nonetheless, given the
improbability of the constancy with which such statements were made, Freud was
forced to acknowledge that “[t]he firm ground of reality was gone” (16).
In Studies in Hysteria. Breuer and Freud propose that “[t]he hysteric suffers
mostly from reminiscences” (4), that is, from the memory of a psychic trauma, which
is, more than the physical trauma, “[t]he active etiological factor in traumatic
neurosis” (3). In accordance with this definition, what the therapeutic method for the
treatment of hysteria attempted to accomplish was to recover the memory of a
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22
trauma that has been repressed, but which nevertheless “acts like a foreign body
which even long after its penetration must be considered as an agent of the present”
(3). For this purpose, Freud conceived of the technique of speaking out one’s mental
associations and the artifice of the pressure on the forehead, by means of which one
would be able to form an “association chain,” a “series of thoughts and
reminiscences, at the end of which [should be] the pathogenic idea” (203). By
means of this continuous procedure (for, with the emergence of a resistance to
mental associations, the pressure on the forehead had to be repeatedly applied), one
would reach “the highest performance of reproduction” (204). For Freud, that would
be “the appearance of thoughts which the patient never wishes to recognize as his
own, which he does not remember, although he admits that they are inexorably
required by the connection, and is convinced that precisely these ideas will cause the
termination of the analysis and the cessation of the symptoms” (204).
To a great extent, basing the psychotherapeutic method on psychic traumas
and on their expression in a “pathogenic idea” or in “pathogenic impressions”
opened the path to the development of the psychoanalytical technique and,
concomitantly, to the theorization of the functioning and structure of the psychic
apparatus. In distrusting his neurotica. Freud concluded that “there is no ‘indication
of reality’ in the unconscious, so that it [becomes] impossible to distinguish between
truth and emotionally-charged fiction” (216). Yet, that did not alter the basic lines of
psychoanalytical theory and technique, which he already outlined in Studies in
Hysteria. Freud notes, first of all, that “there is an unmistakable linear chronological
arrangement” of the reminiscences that are linked to a theme, such as the “theme of
the parents,” of which seduction is a part (Origins 216). These chronologically
arranged reminiscences “increased the work of the analysis through the peculiarity of
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reversing the series of their origin in the reproduction; the freshest and the most
recent occurrence of the accumulation occurred first, so to speak, as a ‘wrapper,’ and
the one with which the series really began gave the impression of the conclusion”
(218). The chronological arrangement of the reminiscences is thus paralleled by a
circular stratification that is organized according to the degree of repression acting
upon the reminiscences. “The deeper one penetrates” into these stratified layers, in
other words, “the more difficult it becomes to recognize the emerging reminiscences,
until one strikes those near the nucleus which the patient disavows, even at the
reproduction” (218). The third and, for Freud, “most essential arrangement”
operates “according to the content of thought, the connection which reaches the
nucleus through the logical threads, which might in each case correspond to a
special, irregular, and manifoldly devious road” (218). The logical concatenation of
this dynamic arrangement follows a “tortuous route, from the superficial into the
deep layers and back” (219). Its zigzag movement is due “to a ramifying and
especially to a converging system of lines,” which “has a junction in which two or
more threads meet, only to proceed thence united, and, as a rule, many threads
running independently, or here and there connected by by-paths, open into the
nucleus” (219). In other words, Freud already postulates here that “a symptom is
manifoldly determined, that is overdetermined” (219).
In tandem with this conceptualization of how the psychic material of
hysterics is organized, Freud elaborated a corresponding technical procedure, which
he utilized in his psychotherapy and later in psychoanalysis as well:
By constantly overcoming the resistance, one pushes his way into the inner
strata, gaining knowledge concerning the accumulative themes and passing
threads found in this layer; one examines as far as he can advance with the
means at hand, and thus gains first information concerning the content of the
next stratum, the threads are dropped, taken upon again, and followed until
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24
they reach the juncture; they are always retrieved, and by following a
memory fascicle one reaches some by-way which finally opens again. In this
manner it is finally possible to leave the stratifications, and advance directly on
the main road to the nucleus of the pathogenic organization. (223)
It is, to borrow Freud’s expression, at “the nucleus of the pathogenic organization”
where the problem raised by Freud’s disbelief in his neurotica lies, that is, the
question of the phantasm. For, if seduction is not that nucleus, where does the truth
of the symptom lie? And, more importantly, how does the fantasy of seduction relate
to it?
In “Draft M,” which he sent to Fliess in May 1897, Freud says that
“[pjhantasies arise from an unconscious combination of things experienced and
heard, constructed for particular purposes” (Origins 204). They “aim at making
inaccessible the memory from which symptoms have been generated or might be
generated” (204). Fantasies are thus “constructed by a process of fusion and
distortion analogous to the decomposition of a chemical body which is combined
with another one” (204). These “things experienced and heard” were related to the
child’s sexuality, as Freud would later summarize in his History of the Psvcho-
Anal vtic Movement:
If hysterical subjects trace back their symptoms to traumas that are fictitious,
then the new fact which emerges is precisely that they create such scenes in
phantasy, and this psychical reality requires to be taken into account alongside
practical reality. This reflection was soon followed by the discovery that these
phantasies were intended to cover up the autoerotic activity of the first years of
childhood, to embellish it and raise it to a higher plane. And now, from behind
the phantasies, the whole range of a child’s sexual life come to light. (16-17).
As a “distortion” that “covers up” real activities, the concept of phantasy turns out to
represent, within psychoanalytical theory, a displacement as well as a postponement
of the question of the truthfulness of the psychoanalytical subject’s statements,
which is, in fact, only temporarilly suspended. As Laplanche and Pontalis observe,
“the analytical rule should be understood as a Greek epoche. an absolute suspension
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of all reality judgments” (“Fantasy” 2). In displacing the object of
psychoanalytical investigation from physical or material reality to a psychical one
(that is, from the traumatic experience to the phantasmatic construct of a traumatic
experience), Freud also displaces the question of truth from one reality to the other.
For, although psychical reality entails the suspension of the judgment of physical
reality, it remains nevertheless a reality, and, as such, it is formed by real facts, that
is, the production of psychical material, such as fantasies, images, thoughts, etc. As
Freud puts it, fantasies “too possess a reality of a sort,” for “[i]t remains a fact that
the patient has created these phantasies for himself, and this fact is of scarcely less
importance for his neurosis than if he had really experienced what the phantasies
contain” (Introductory Lectures 458).
However, as much as the reality of material facts, the reality of these psychic
facts remains to be proven. The analysand, in other words, must attest to the reality
of the psychic facts that the analyst reconstructs by means of psychoanalysis. That
is, in fact, Freud’s concern with the patient’s conviction of the analyst’s construct,
which is already apparent in Studies in Hysteria in relation to the pathogenic ideas.
Freud notes (perhaps not without surprise) that “[ejven after everything is
accomplished, when the patients are overcome by the logical force and are convinced
of the curative effect accompanying the emergence of this idea — I say even if the
patients themselves assume that they have thought “so and so,” they often add, ‘but
to recall, that I have thought so, I cannot’” (228). The reason why patients cannot
produce such a recollection lies in the “regressive direction” that characterizes
psychoanalysis. As Freud observes, “[tjhis regression led constantly further
backwards; at first it seemed regularly to bring us to puberty; later on, failures and
points which still eluded explanation drew the analytic work further and further back
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into years of childhood which had hitherto been inaccessible to any kind of
exploration” (History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement 7).
What matters in this regression towards childhood, though, is that the
chronological regression, as he postulates in Studies in Hysteria, is accompanied by a
regression into the deepest layers of the psychic material. As Freud puts it, only
“from analyses that present special difficulties . . . do we succeed in descending into
the deepest and most primitive strata of mental development and in gaining from
there solutions for the problems of the later formations” (“History of Infantile
Neurosis” 476). In this descent, the analyst must “behave as ‘timelessly’ as the
unconscious itself, if he wishes to . . . achieve anything” (477), that is, to reach the
unconscious formations that lay in the depth of one’s psyche. Hence, Freud states, in
view of his patients’ inability to recall having produced certain primordial thoughts,
that “[o]ne readily comes to an understanding with them by saying that these were
12
unconscious thoughts” (Studies 228).
The concept of unconscious thoughts, however, raises the same type of
problems as those one faces in relation to dreams, which “only show us the dreamer
in so far as he is not asleep” (“Metapsychological Supplement” 138). Similarly,
although the unconscious is ultimately “that something else which is more
independent of the particular receptive capacity of our sense organs and which
approximates more closely to what may be supposed to be the real state of affairs,”
Freud admits that psychoanalysts “have no hope of being able to reach the latter
itself, since it is evident that everything new that [they] have inferred must
nevertheless be translated back into the language of our perceptions, from which it is
simply impossible for us to free ourselves” (Outline 82). In this sense, “reality,”
Freud adds, “will always remain ‘unknowable’” (83), and, when psychoanalysts say,
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‘ “ At this point an unconscious memory intervened,’” one must take it as meaning,
“‘At this point something occurred of which we are totally unable to form a
conception, but which, if it had entered our consciousness, could only have been
described in such a way’” (83). If the unconscious remains thus unknowable
because it is only recognizable by means of the traces that gain access to
consciousness — traces that are present in the fiction that the subject creates in the
form of a fantasy, thereby distorting the primordial psychic material that the patient
cannot recall because it is unconscious — , the truth of psychic facts must lie
somewhere else.
Psychoanalytical theory resumes then its “regressive direction,” geared now
towards the infancy of mankind. In attempting to answer the question of “whence . .
. the need for these phantasies [of seduction] and the material for them” come, Freud
devises the concept of “primal fantasies,” which are a “phylogenetic endowment”
[Introductory Lectures 461). In these primal fantasies, “the individual reaches
beyond his own experience into primaeval experience at points where his own
experience has been so rudimentary” (461). The truth of psychic facts (that is, the
physical reality that corresponds to the present-day psychic reality) lies precisely at
these points situated back in primaeval experience. Freud states:
It seems to me quite possible that all the things that are told to us today in
analysis as phantasy — the seduction of children, the inflaming of sexual
excitement by observing parental intercourse, the threat of castration (or rather
castration itself) — were once real occurrences in the primaeval times of the
human family, and that children in their fantasies are simply filling in the gaps
in individual truth with prehistoric truth. (461)
As Laplanche and Pontalis observe, there is, in Freud’s conceptualization of primal
fantasies, “the same pursuit of an ultimate truth, the same schema is used once more,
the dialectic of the two successive historical events, the same disappointment — as if
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Freud had learned nothing — as the ultimate event, the ‘scene,’ disappears over the
horizon” (“Fantasy” 9). Psychoanalysis, in its “regressive direction,” reaches a cul-
de-sac in which neither the facticity of primeval material reality nor that of
primordial psychic reality can be proven. What could then be gained from this cul-
de-sac one finds when pursuing the truth of phantasms?
Breuer, in his report on the case of Anna 0., states that he “always found the patient
perfectly truthful and trustworthy” because “[e]ven the most talented girl would not
be in any position to build up a system of statements, which would contain such a
perfect inner logic” (Studies 29). Convinced of the truthfulness of Anna O.’s
statements by the force of the inner logic of her discourse, Breuer makes a statement
that is analogous to Freud’s clinical experience. For the force of a perfect inner
logic, which Freud constructs in his psychoanalytical theory, partially determines the
patient’s conviction in the analyst’s construction. According to Freud, when the
pathogenic idea comes to light, the patient is “overcome by the logical force” of the
ideas the analyst puts forward (Studies 228), ideas that, the patient admits, “are
inexorably required by the connection” between the traces of forgotten psychical
experiences (204).
As a connection that renders the telling of one’s experiences logically
intelligible, psychoanalytical constructions must be understood as a rationalist
enterprise, even when Freud insists on its “labours in the depths” (History of the
Psycho-Analytic Movement 79). For, in psycho-analysis, conscious formations are
seen as logical constructs whose defaults must be explained by recourse to the idea
of another instance in the psychical apparatus, the “foreign guests” within the Ego’s
“own house,” as Freud puts it in “One of the Difficulties of Psycho-Analysis” (21).
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Hence, the task of the psychoanalyst is, first of all, to “view with a critical eye the
assertion obtained from the patient without much effort and resistance” (Studies
222). In so doing, the analyst “unmistakably discovers] in it gaps and damages”
(222), and, “[b]y tracing the breaches of the patient’s first statements, which are
often hidden by ‘false connections,’ [he] gets hold of a part of the logical thread at
the periphery, and thereafter continues the route by the pressure procedure” (222-23).
Once this route is found, the analyst is able to “p u t. . . together again into the
conjectured organization” the traces of the unconscious formations that the
analysand, because he “knows without knowing that he knows them” (Introductory
Lectures 124), may unknowingly tell the analyst. In the Outline of Psycho-Analysis,
an unfinished work that he wrote at the age of 82, Freud summarizes the procedure
as follows:
We make our observations through the medium of the [psychical] apparatus,
precisely with the help of the breaks in the sequence of ‘psychical’ events: we
fill in what is omitted by making plausible inferences and translating it into
conscious material. In this way we construct, as it were, a sequence of
conscious events complementary to the unconscious psychical processes. (31)
In this sense, the psychoanalytical procedure, which consists of identifying breaches
in the analysand’s narrative, picking up threads of thought, and establishing logical
connections between them according to inferences, constitutes, in the last instance,
the textual construction of a narrative.
Such textual construction is evident in the case of the patient who could only
produce, in the psychotherapeutic sessions, “catch-words,” as Freud calls them.
Therefore, in his analysis Freud “had to elaborate [these words] into sentences, for
the seeming irrelevance and incoherence in these oracle-like words generally occur
in all ideas and scenes as a result of pressure” (Studies 207). However, Freud adds
that “[o]n further investigation it is regularly found that the seemingly disconnected
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reminiscences are connected by intimate streams of thought, and that they lead
quite directly to the desired pathogenic factor” (207). For Freud, it is precisely the
possibility of establishing similar trains of thoughts from the associations arising
from auy dream that justifies, in his eyes, his claim that “[i]t became possible to
prove that dreams have a meaning and to discover it” (Autobiographical Study 47).
Nonetheless, since the objects of psychoanalysis have no existence outside of
language, given that dreams as well as unconscious formations in general need to be
not only reconstructed, but also transposed into a linguistic text in order to be
recognized as an object that may be subjected to analysis, it cannot be proven, as
Freud asseverates, that dreams have the meaning he assigns to them (and the same
might be said, consequently, of unconscious formations). For these meanings might
very well be the effect of strategies that organize the very discourse of Freud’s
interpretations, such as framing.1 3
Following Gregory Bateson’s proposition that one should consider “[t]he
frame around a picture . . . as a message intended to order or organize the perception
of the viewer,” one might say that Freud utilizes several rhetorical strategies in order
to say to his reader, just like the picture frame, ‘“ Attend to what is within and do not
attend to what is outside’” (187). In his interpretation of the dream of the company
at table d’hote fOn Dreams 10), the first strategy Freud uses is a reduction of the
possible avenues of interpretation by means of a dismissal of the erotic content of the
dream. This is evident in his description of his relationship with the woman in the
dream: “Frau E. L. is a person with whom I have hardly at any time been on friendly
terms, nor, so far as I know, have I ever wished to have any closer relations with her”
(11). Having thus discarded what appears to be the main theme of the dream in
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Freud’s retelling of it, the path is open to another signification of the dream, which
Freud constructs by means of subsequent framing strategies.
The next strategy functions as a reframing of a frame that was previously
proposed by Freud’s interlocutor: if his friend points out that it is agreeable to ride in
a cab with a taximeter, so that they have “something to look at,” Freud will re-
contextualize the taximeter, after the cab driver sets the dial, stating that he and his
friend already owed him 60 hellers (11). In this sense, the taximeter aquires a new
signification: from something agreeable, it becomes something unpleasant, a debt.
Once this frame is established, all of Freud’s interpretations of the other elements of
the dream start, quite logically, to fall into this category. The framing notion of
“debt” functions, in this case, as a semantic field in which all of the elements of the
dream as well as the associations derived from it must be read: the quotation from
Goethe, the scene in the Tyrol with his wife, Frau E. L., her speech, the friend with
whom he had dined, and the spinach.
Such a framing of his interpretation of the dream is supported by a few other
strategies. First, Freud overlooks indexes of interpretation, such as the “as though”
which associates the scene in the Tyrol with that at the table d’hote, therefore
reducing the distance that the “as though” establishes to an identification that
reinforces “the meaning” of the dream (the scene in the Tyrol thereby becomes
another instance of the question of debt). Second, Freud omits parts of the dream in
his interpretation. He states, for example, that Frau E. L. said, ‘“ You’ve always had
such beautiful eyes’” (13), instead of “‘But you’ve always had such beautiful eyes’”
(11; emphasis mine). Although, in omitting the conjunction, Freud may have
rendered the sentence more easily comprehensible (mainly within the frame he
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proposes, given that the focus may fall now entirely on “beautiful eyes”), he has
also deleted one important aspect of the dream in relation to the theme of eroticism.
In fact, the “but” in Frau E. L.’s sentence also functions as a frame. As
Deborah Tannen notes, “[t]he ‘but’ is another important kind of evidence of
expectations. It marks the contrast with the expectation established by the preceding
statement. . ( 2 7 ) . In the case of Freud’s recounting of this dream, that statement is
“I removed her hand unresponsively.” Within this context, the adversative
conjunction “but” may be read as a reply to Freud’s reprehension (“You should not
have laid your hand on my knee”), implied in his act of removing her hand.
Finally, Freud reduces the possibilities of signification of Frau E. L.’s
sentence by stating that it “can only have meant” what he says it means (13). In
thus“divorc[ing] [the separate elements of the dream] from their context” (14) in
order to bring them into “the new context” that he creates as he frames his
interpretation, Freud performs, within a paradigmatic axis, a guided selection of the
qualities with which he identifies, from his past experience, the different elements of
the dream. In this sense, one should read Freud’s assertion that “[his] associations to
the dream were bringing to light connections which were not visible in the dream
itself’ (13) more literally than what he proposes.
In other words, the construction of an interpretive frame for the dream
appears to justify Jung’s claim that Freud’s interpretations of dreams are nothing
more than interpretations.1 4 As a result, psychoanalytical subjects must once again,
adopt a “provisional belief’ (“History” 509) in the truthfulness of one’s
constructions, but now supported by the logical and transferential forces that have
constituted them. In this sense, the suspicion and the “regressive direction” that are
characteristic of psychoanalysis must yield to a suspension of disbelief, to borrow
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Coleridge’s expression, without which psychoanalysis would turn into a process of
endless regressive twists.
To suspend one’s disbelief and, consequently, to believe in another’s belief
entails a negotiation of the credibility of a constructed discourse. Such credibility
constitutes a recognition of one’s constructions, without which one may be stuck in
the relationship of the whale and the polar bear. In this sense, in attempting to
ascertain the physical reality of the primal scene and the truthfulness of his patient’s
statements, Freud evinces the limits of events and actions and, consequently, of the
truth of discourse. Being at the same time transient and localized, events and actions
always slip (rather instantaneously) outside of the realm of the real. That means that
the reality of certain facts and the truthfulness of the corresponding discourse remain
not only subject to disbelief, but also open (and perhaps should remain open) to
negotiation.1 5
In view of the vanishing reality of phantasms, Freud and his patients engage
in a specular recognition of both psychoanalytical constructs and of the construction
of psychoanalysis. Unable, for obvious reasons, to decide by himself “in which
direction to investigate, and what things [he has] to force upon the patient” [Studies
212), Freud states that the former “can be recognized by the perfectly calm
expression of the patient” (229), and, inversely, the latter, by “the tension and
emotional signs under which the patient labors in trying to disavow the emerging
reminiscences with the object of defense” (212). A double recognition is thus put
into play in psychoanalysis -- in that the patient physically recognizes the analyst’s
interpretations whereas the analyst intellectually recognizes the patients’
recognitions — , which, repeatedly reproduced in the “regressive direction” of the
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analysis, leads to the final recognition, the one that, since the patient cannot recall
it, appears “only after a long familiarity with [the] assumption” (227).
But even this final recognition may be misrecognized. As Freud notes, “it
frequently happen[s] that after the patients have been painstakingly forced to a
certain knowledge, they say: ‘Why I have known that all the time, I could have told
you that before’” (227). Given this last strike from resistance, psychoanalysis must
take one step further back, for “[tjhose who have more insight recognize this
afterwards as a self-deception and accuse themselves of ingratitude” (227). In this
manner, the more insightful patient (or, one might say, the “true” psychoanalysand)
might reconsider his initial statement and recognize his or her “fausse
reconnaissance” that appears “much to the physician’s satisfaction” (“Fausse
Reconnaissance” 341). After eighteen years have elapsed between the publications
of Studies in Hysteria and “Fausse Reconnaissance,” Freud still insists that, after the
analyst “has succeeded in forcing the repressed event (whether it was of a real or of a
psychical nature) upon the patient’s acceptance and in the teeth of all resistances”
and after he “has succeeded, as it were, in rehabilitating it[,] the patient may say:
‘Now I feel as though I had known it all the time’” (341). With this statement, Freud
concludes, “the problem of the analysis has been solved” (341).
To a certain extent, Freud’s conclusion is right, for the mediation expressed
by the patient’s “as though” marks the very work of psychoanalysis. It functions, to
borrow a psychoanalytical term, as a compromise formation whereby the patient
ambiguously resists and at the same time reproduces the psychoanalytical point of
view, neither totally negating his phantasms nor completely affirming the insights of
psychoanalysis. In his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Freud recounts
how he once made an exception to the rule of “saying everything” to a patient who
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“was bound under his oath of office not to make communications about certain
things to another person” (357). The result, Freud says, was that the patient, “it is
true, was satisfied with the outcome; but [Freud himself] was not” (357). Freud’s
dissatisfaction with the outcome of this analysis, contrasted with his satisfaction in
hearing the patient’s recognized “fausse reconnaissance” that closes the analysis,
suggests that, although the problem of the analysis might have been solved, perhaps
one cannot say the same about that of psychoanalysis.
If it is true that the real behind phantasms is constantly vanishing before
Freud, it is also no less true that such disappearance occurs within the real. For, even
though the reality of phantasms that Freud pursues with his patients is the vanished
reality of past events and actions, that pursuit cannot but take place within the real.
That pursuit is itself another phantasm, one we have learned to call psychoanalysis.
As such, it must also become a credible one.
In art, Freud found a reconciliation between the pleasure-principle and the reality-
principle. He sees the artist as an introvert, almost a neurotic who “cannot come to
terms with the demand for the renunciation of [an] instinctual satisfaction”
(“Formulations” 19) that is so “powerful” that it “oppressefs]” him (Introductory
Lectures 467). An artist “desires to win honour, power, wealth, fame and the love of
women; but he lacks the means for achieving these satisfactions . . ., [and] he turns
away from reality and transfers all his interest, and his libido too, to the wishful
constructions of his life of phantasy . . .” (Introductory Lectures 467). In his fantasy-
life, the artist “allows full play to his erotic and ambitious wishes” (“Formulations”
19). But, Freud adds, “he finds a way of return from this world of phantasy back to
reality; with his special gifts he moulds his phantasies into a new kind of reality, and
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men concede them a justification as valuable reflections of actual life”
(“Formulations” 19). His “[ajccess to the half-way region of phantasy,” in other
words, “is permitted [emphasis mine] by the universal assent of mankind”
(Introductory Lectures 468). By means of this social recognition, the artist
“achieve[s] through his phantasy what originally he had achieved only in his
phantasy — honour, power and the love of women” (Introductory Lectures 468); he
thus “actually becomes the hero, king, creator, [and] favourite he desired to be”
(“Formulations” 19). Nonetheless, the artist cannot, contrary to what Freud thought,
do so “without pursuing the circuitous path of creating real alterations in the outer
world” (“Formulations” 19), for there is no social recognition outside of this path.
In 1909, Freud and Jung were invited to Clark University, in Massachusetts,
to spend a week giving a series of lectures. In his Autobiographical Study. Freud
recounts the event in the most favorable eyes:
At that time I was only fifty-three. I felt young and healthy, and my short visit
to the new world encouraged my self-respect in every way. In Europe I felt as
though I were despised; but over there I found myself received by the foremost
men as an equal. As I stepped on to the platform at Worcester to deliver my
Five Lectures upon Psychoanalysis it seemed like the realization of some
incredible day-dream: psychoanalysis was no longer a product of delusion, it
had become a valuable part of reality. (58)
No other example could illustrate more clearly that, in order to realize fantasies (and
psychoanalysis as well as the fatherhood of its creator are certainly two of those
fantasies that have been most laboriously constructed and equally laboriously
recognized), one must thread the path of real alterations in the outer world, even if
this path consists simply of visiting the New World and giving five lectures at a
university. As we shall see in my reading of Caetes. it is precisely this circuitous
path of the real that, to paraphrase Peter Gay, repays one’s daydreamings, with
dividends: phantasms sometimes materialize.
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Notes
For the most important studies on the relationship between intellectuals and
State power, which are so far perhaps the most significant reassessments, within
Latin American studies, of the intellectuals’ critique of power, see, for Spanish
America, Nicola Miller’s In the Shadow of the State (1999), and, for Brazil, Sergio
Miceli’s Intelectuais e classe dirigente no Brasil (1979) and Daniel Pecaut’s Os
intelectuais e a politica no Brasil (1990).
2
Although Rama does not define “power,” one may deduct from his
argumentation that he means to say State power whenever he refers to “power.” I
will hereafter use his unspecified term when discussing La ciudad letrada.
3
Two of the men of letters cited are Jose Marti, who differentiated, in 1888,
between the universe “que se mueve bajos sus [de los hispanoamericanos] pies”
[“that moves beneath their [of Spanish Americans] feet”] and “el que llevan en la
cabeza” [“the one they carry in their heads”] (122), and Jose Pedro Varela, a
Uruguayan educator who, in 1876, criticized lawyers for gilding reality with their
speeches and laws (79-80).
4
The same negative conception of the phantasmatic appears in Louis
Althusser’s For Marx (1965). In fact, his use of “ideological phantasms” (29) and
“phantoms” (116), which are perceived as the nothingness that threatens Marxism in
its scientificity, resonates the concept of ideology, which is conceived in The
German Ideology “as a pure illusion, a pure dream, i.e. as nothingness,” as Althusser
puts it (“Ideology” 159). According to Althusser, “[i]deology, then, is for Marx [in
The German Ideology! an imaginary assemblage (bncoiage), a pure dream, empty
and vain, constituted by the ‘day’s residues’ from the only full and positive reality,
that of the concrete history of concrete material individuals materially producing
their existence” (“Ideology” 160).
5
As Peter Starr points out in Logics of Failed Revolt (1995), the so-called
failure of revolutionary action — haunted, in its modem sense, by the fear of a return
to a political or social point from which it attempted to break free and create an
absolutely new political or social order — is misconstrued by a series of logics that
are “grounded in an essentialist tautology whereby failure is presumed to equal
failure (and nothing else), whereby the social system that returns on the far side of a
revolutionary episode is deemed the same as that against which revolution was
b ro u g h t. . .; w hereby P ow er or the Master are always at one with themselves (and
hence absolutely noxious)” (21).
6
In no other case is the logicality of this conflation as apparent as in
Monteiro Lobato’s appraisal of Marx’s theory. Although Monteiro Lobato himself
was an entrepreneur (after selling the farm he had inherited from his grandfather,
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Viscount of Tremembe, Lobato invests in the publishing business and ultimately
founds the first Brazilian publishing house; his next big investment was the
exploration of oil and iron, which, after a stay in the United States in 1931, he saw as
fundamental for the development of a nation) and hence not aligned with Marxist
politics, he admired Marx’s attention to “reality.” This admiration was derived from
Lobato’s own emphasis on Brazilian social “reality” over the Romantic idealization
of “the Brazilian man’s character.”
7
One of the notes in Capital provides an evident example of that: “He
[David Ricardo] has reduced the apparent relativity which these things (diamonds,
pearls, etc.) possess to the true relation hidden behind the appearance, namely their
relativity as mere expressions of human labour” (177, n. 38).
8
Althusser’s indebtedness to Marx and Engels’s use of the same logic is
patent once we compare the quotation from Althusser’s For Marx with the following
ones from The German Ideology:
In the same petty-bourgeois spirit the German princes imagined they were
fighting for the principle of legitimism and against revolution, whereas they
were only the paid mercenaries of the English bourgeoisie. (99)
The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life-
process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in
their own or other people’s imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they
operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material
limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will. (47)
Whilst in ordinary life every shopkeeper is very well able to distinguish
betweeen what somebody professes to be and what he really is, our historians
have not yet won even this trivial insight. They take every epoch at its word and
believe that everything it says and imagines about itself is true. (67)
9
Foucault claims, indeed, that genealogies are “anti-sciences.” They are not
a “unitary body of theory” that, under the name of a true knowledge, “filter,
hierarchize and order” the “local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate
knowledges” (Power/Knowledge 83).
10
One cannot say, stricto sensu. that the susperstructure/infrastructure
dichotomy may be registered through a topography, for the stratification im plied in
the Marxist concepts cannot be registered by a type of writing (graphe) that covers
only surfaces.
n
Topology, as J. Hillis Miller reminds us, is “a branch of mathematics, the
science of the placement of places” (10).
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In “Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis” (1909), Freud relates
how he explained to his patient that “[t]he unconscious . . . was the infantile; it was
that part of the self which had become separated off from it in infancy, which had not
shared the later stages of its development, and which had in consequence become
repressed. It was the derivatives of this repressed unconscious that were responsible
for the involuntary thoughts which constituted his illness” (315-16).
13
I am assuming here that frames, although implicit (i.e., not verbalized) in a
culturally contextualized discourse, cannot be classified as unconscious formations
(at least not altogether), given the obviousness of many of the frames that Deborah
Tannen elicits in her article “What’s in a Frame? Surface Evidence for Underlying
Expectations.”
14
In taking the interpretation of dreams as nothing more than interpretation,
Jung arrives at an interesting conclusion: “I do not need to prove that my
interpretation of the dream is right (a pretty hopeless undertaking anyway), but must
simply try to discover, with the patient, what acts for him — I am almost tempted to
say, what is actual” (“Aims” 45). His idea of “what acts” for a subject is akin, on an
intersubjective level, to what I have been calling the effectivity of the phantasm.
For a succinct negative appraisal of both Freud’s and Jung’s theories on
dreams from the point of view of recent research, see Domhoff.
15
Reading Freud’s psychoanalytical texts somewhat overshadows the
practical negotiations in which Freud engaged as a social agent and which can only
be brought into one’s field of vision when reading other texts that deal more directly
with real events. In one of his letters to Fliess, for instance, Freud comments that
“[a] patient with whom [he] [had] been in negotiation [had] just announced herself,
whether to decline or accept treatment [he] [did] not know” (Origins 298).
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2. Caetes: Fantasies and the Social Topography
40
Quando se trata de fazer valer todos os bens do homem, nao era justo
que se esquecesse o coragao, o espuito, a elegancia, as boas maneiras, e mesmo os
bonitos olhos. Ate agora a sociedade tinha reservado isso para sua distragao. mas o
genio da cspcculagao entende que esses valores reais nao devem ficar improdutivos,
e trata de leva-los ao mercado; nao tarda que eles sejam cotados na praga, como a
agao de uma companhia, o ordenado de um empregado publico, ou a promessa de
um agiota. Entao, um mogo capaz de se fazer amar pelas senhoras ricas, valera, em
materia de credito, o mesmo que um negociante honesto e um industrial ativo;
porque tera uma conla corrente aberta sobre a burra dos maridos, ou dos pais de
suas namoradas.
*
Jose de Alencar, O credito (1857)
Beautiful eyes have now a market value. This affirmation, formulated in
such a manner, may sound somewhat absurd, at least if we do not understand it with
the same irony with which Alencar appears to have written his play O credito
[Credit], Physical, social, and even spiritual attributes are all on the market now and
priced. One should look for their tags. Nonetheless, as is often the case with ironic
remarks, one ought to take that affirmation seriously too. For, even if we cannot but
perceive with a certain irony such a blatant transposition of the social world into a
space that is, within the context of the play, strictly economic, the affirmation is
nevertheless quite sharp concerning social relations and exchanges. If one does not
read that transposition as a form of economism, but rather as an indication that
economic practices bring to light general properties of different social practices, even
non-economic ones, then the lines in Alencar’s play cease to be merely a jocose
* “When it comes to considering men’s possessions for all they are worth, it is not fair that one should
forget the heart, the spirit, elegance, good manners, and even pretty eyes. Society had reserved all
that for its amusement so far, but the genius of speculation understands that these real values should
not remain unproductive and sees that they are taken to the marketplace, where they will soon be
quoted, just like a company’s shares, a civil servant’s salary, or a usurer’s promissory notes. Hence, a
young man who is capable of making himself loved by rich ladies will be worth, in terms of credit, as
much as an honest businessman or an active industrialist, for he will have an open checking account
in the money chest of the husband or the father of their beloved.”
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41
commentary on adultery. They evince, in a remarkably succinct manner, what
Graciliano Ramos portrayed in his first novel, Caetes: social values, not unlike
economically valuable objects, have a market of their own, and, as values, they may
be employed in investments that, in the long run, may very well turn out to be
economically profitable.
As in Alencar’s play, in Ramos’s Caetes adultery is one of these profitable
social investments, constituting perhaps the main thread in his narrative. In the
novel, the story is rather banal: a bookkeeper, Joao Valerio, falls in love with his
boss’s wife, Luisa; he becomes her lover; an anonymous letter reveals their affair to
the betrayed husband; the husband shoots himself and ends up dying; Joao Valerio
becomes partner in the firm that Luisa inherits. Although the story is banal, Ramos’s
narrative technique of using different planes in which we have access to both the
character’s fantasies and his objective social relations, allows us to investigate the
effectivity of phantasms in terms of how fantasies help us to construct a social
topography while being traversed by the limits of one’s social position.
In the first part of the chapter, I will reconstruct the several apparitions of the
term “phantasm” or of terms derived from it in the criticism of Ramos’s literary
works. In this reconstruction, we see how phantasms have been associated with the
notion of a deformation of the real, which is at times related to a deformation of the
“real” (meaning authentic) social relations. Criticism tends thus to either a
normativeness or a teleology that does not permit us to see the effectivity of Joao
Valerio’s phantasms. My reading will follow, instead, what Santa Rosa’s pictorial
representation of Ramos’s novel has suggested me, and I shall also deal in detail, in
this first part, with Santa Rosa’s print for the cover of the first edition of Caetes. To
my eyes, Santa Rosa’s picture not only displays the planes of the real and the
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42
phantasmatic that several critics have identified in the novel, but it also evinces
how both planes co-exist in the same space. The phantasmatic, Santa Rosa’s picture
tells us, operates in conjunction with objective investments. But it also points to the
character’s ambiguous social position.
My starting point for the second part of the chapter, focusing on Ramos’s
novel itself, is Valerio’s first phantasmatic construct, a fantasy of social devaluation.
In following Valerio’s fantasies, we see how he constructs through them a practical
knowledge of social relations in terms of both ideology and the processes structuring
such relations. He phantasmatically draws a social topography of the distribution of
capital, which is, within the context of the novel, socially accurate. But he also
constructs a possible reorganization of the social space and of the capital he would
have to possess and the investments he would have to make for such a re
organization. Unlike Adriao, his boss, or Barroca, a lawyer whom I shall analyze
more attentively, Valerio appears to have no social cohesion. His social position is
ambiguous, and, instead of full investments, he makes multiple, partial investments
in the positions of cultural producer and Romantic lover. As we shall see, for
Valerio these multiple, partial investments turn out to be socially and economically
profitable.
2.1. Besides Deformation: Phantasms in the Room
In their analyses of Graciliano Ramos’s works, several critics have used the
term “fantasma” [phantasm] or terms derived from it in order to describe certain
elements of Ramos’s fiction. Wilson Martins, for example, calls seu Ribeiro, a
decadent landowner who appears in the novel Sao Bernardo, a “fantasma de um
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43
mundo para sempre extinto” (39).* Antonio Candido states that, in Angustia. “o
mundo e as pessoas sao uma especie de realidade fantasmal, colorida pela disposigao
morbida do narrador” (“Bichos” 80),1 and Nelly Novaes Coelho points out that Luis
da Silva, the protagonist in Angustia. lives in isolation among the “phantasms” of his
memory (65). Similarly, Rolando Morel Pinto affirms that all of Ramos’s characters
“alimentam fantasmagorias geradas pela superexcitagao e solidao forgada” (260).; t
According to Helio Polvora, Luis da Silva’s childhood “phantams” foster his anguish
(129), whereas, for Sonia Brayner, the character perceives the world through a
“fantasmagoria expressionista” (208).§ Fernando Cristovao not only calls sinha
Germana, Luis da Silva’s grandmother, a “phantasm” that anticipates the
protagonist’s tragic end (66), but also describes the confusion of temporal planes in
chapter nineteen of Sao Bernardo as a “passado-presente fantasma” (92).** Finally,
Leticia Malard characterizes all of the figures who appear in Luis da Silva’s
delirium, with which Angustia ends, as “phantasms” (24).
All of the above mentioned critics use the term “phantasm” in order to
express different types of distortion of the real, a process accentuated in Angustia
precisely because Luis da Silva undergoes a gradual psychological derangement that
culminates with the assassination of the antagonist, Juliao Tavares. Martins’s use of
the term “phantasm” indicates a socio-historical incongruity between a social agent
and the contemporary socio-economic organization of the society in which he lives.
As society develops, the social agent loses his authority and, because he does not
“phantasm of a world forever extinct.”
1 *
“the world and the people are a sort of phantasmic reality, tinted by the narrator’s morbid
disposition.”
f
“nurture phantasmagorias engendered by overexcitement and forced solitude.”
§ “expressionist phantasmagoria.”
* *
“phantasmic past-present.”
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44
modernize himself, seeking to occupy one of the new, emerging social positions
that produce and are produced by the restructuring of society, he becomes a remnant
of a class that is in the process of becoming extinct, to use Martins’s expression. In
this sense, Martins’s use is a particular case of the general (and more common) use
that Coelho, Polvora, and Cristovao make of the term. Since seu Ribeiro is the
representative of an extinct class, he is as much a ghost as the dead whom, because
they still haunt Luis da Silva’s psyche, the critics characterize as phantasms.
Nonetheless, phantasms are not only comprised of non-existent (or soon-to-
be non-existent) beings. We may see the concept of the presence of a non-existent
being, which defines the phantasm, as an extreme case of the presence of absent
beings whose presence one may conjure up by calling or invoking their name and,
with it, their existence in the speaker’s mind. This is the case, for instance, with the
figures in Luis da Silva’s delirium, with which Angustia ends. Whether the
phantasm refers to non-existent or to merely absent beings, Luis da Silva’s delirium
indicates that in both cases the phantasm may become an astonishingly real presence.
When Candido states that “the world and the people are a sort of phantasmic reality,”
he is propounding that the “distorting” subjectivity has reconstructed the real in such
a way that what is actually present becomes absent to the subject, given that he
substitutes his construction of the real for the real itself. What is left of this
substitution, then, is the “phantasmagoria” that both Pinto and Brayner identify in
Luis da Silva’s narration, and which makes explicit, more than any of the other uses
of the term “phantasm,” the concept of a deformation of the real. It is, however,
Lucia Helena Carvalho’s psychoanalytical criticism of Angustia that most clearly
reads the phantasm as a form of deformation of the “real.”1 Precisely because she
puts into play the logic of unmasking constitutive of Freudian psychoanalysis, her
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45
reading of the novel “reveals” the “real” drives that the subject represses by means
of a phantasmatic masking. In analyzing the scene in which Luis da Silva conflates
the figure of Juliao Tavares, the antagonist who robs him of his soon-to-be wife, with
that of a boy who deflowers the daughter of a “senhor de engenho,” for instance,
Carvalho states that “[cjontrabandeando o desejo censurado, o inconsciente faz este
desejo exteriorizar-se atraves de um discurso estranho, paranoico, em que dados da
ficgao se mesclam a objetos reais, deformando-os num todo fantasmal” (33).*
Although Candido uses the term “deformation” to point out a discrepancy
between the real and the imaginary, particularly in relation to Angustia (see “Ficgao”
20; “Bichos” 85), he also inscribes it in another context, formulating a different (but
not unrelated) notion: the real is not simply social reality, as in his analyses of
Angustia. but also that which he conceives to be the “authentic” forms of social
relations. When he analyzes Sao Bernardo. Candido states that the protagonist’s
mentality had been “deformed” (“Ficgao” 26) and that, as a result, he “deformed” the
emotional ties he established with other characters, especially with Madalena, his
wife (“Ficgao” 28). For Candido, these deformations are related to a “force” that
transcends Paulo Honorio and guides his actions, namely, his “sentimento de
propriedade” (“Ficgao” 24)/ a proclivity to perceive every person or thing as a
property one owns and hence to reify the persons to whom one relates. To that
“feeling of property,” Candido opposes what he calls “[a] bondade humanitaria de
Madalena” (“Ficgao” 27)/
*
“[sjmuggling the censored desire, the unconscious makes this desire exteriorize itself through a
strange, paranoid discourse, in which fictional elements blend with real objects, deforming them and
deforming themselves in a fantasmic whole.”
^ “feeling of property.”
“Madalena’s humane kindness.”
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46
An articulation between the two applications of the term “deformed” is
apparent when, in the same essay in which Candido notes that Luis da Silva’s
perception of reality is deformed, he adds that “nele [Luis da Silva], ha depravagao
dos valores, sentimento de abjegao ante o qual tudo se colore de tonalidade corrupta
e opressiva. . . . Deste modo, a vida se torna pesadelo sem saida, onde as visbes
desnorteiam e suprimem a distingao do real e do fantastico” (“Ficgao” 34). Bound
to each other by a causal relation, the deformations of social values and of social
reality are reinforced by the logic through which Candido comprehends Ramos’s
literary production. For the critic, Ramos “passou da ficgao para a autobiografia
como desdobramento coerente e necessario da sua obra” (“Ficgao” 11).+ If, as
Candido suggests, Ramos’s autobiographical writings function as if the writer
“estivesse completando pela propria vivencia o panorama que antes havia elaborado
no piano ficticio” (“Ficgao” 54),* the very person of the author — the real-life one —
not only embodies, but also finalizes the articulation that was first constructed within
the fiction.2 According to Candido, “havia nele [Graciliano Ramos] desajuste muito
mais profundo de toda a personalidade em relagao aos valores socias que a formaram
e deformaram; um desajuste essencial que o levou nao apenas a assumir atitude
antagonica, mas a analisar em si mesmo as suas conseqiiencias” (“Ficgao” 70).§
The closed circuit that Candido produces by articulating both “fiction and
confession” in a coherent, structured whole of mutually supportive parts underscores
*
“in him [Luis da Silva], there is a debasement of values, a feeling of abjection in face of which
everything is tinted with corrupt and oppressive tones. .. . Thus, life becomes an endless nightmare,
where the visions confuse and supress the distinction between the real and the fantastic.”
1 *
“switched from fiction to autobiography as a coherent and necessary development of his work.”
* “were completing with his own life experience the panorama that he had elaborated on the fictional
level.”
§ “there was in him [Graciliano Ramos] a much deeper maladjustment, concerning his personality as a
whole, in relation to the social values that formed and deformed it; an essential maladjustment that led
him not only to take up an antagonistic attitude, but also to analyze its consequences in himself.”
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47
the dichotomies that Ramos himself implies in his novels.3 Making the readers go
over Ramos’s fiction first and then his memoirs, only to demonstrate how the latter is
a continuation of the former, Candido takes the readers back to where they started,
placing them in front of the same scene time and again: a writer is attempting to
point to the real by criticizing its deformations, and so is a critic, as he moves along
his reflections on and of the writer. Nonetheless, one should note that, because the
term “deformation” entails, by definition, the existence of a “real” or “natural” form
against which the deformation stands out, Candido’s analyses necessarily imply a
certain degree of normativeness. Or, in case the “real” form is not yet present or
predominant in society, it might be pointing to a teleology. When analyzing
Ramos’s prison memoirs, Candido states, on the one hand, that Ramos’s
“sensibility” was marked by a “nostalgia da humanidade depurada” (“Ficgao” 67),*
which, precisely because it finds no counterpart in the present, can only seek it in the
future. For Candido, this investment in the future is achieved when Ramos joins the
Communist Party. On the other hand, he affirms that, strangely enough, when man’s
humanity is the most debased, “decanta-se o genuino do falso” (“Bichos” 91).+
Since one of the points that Candido makes in his essay is that both the
characters in the novels and Ramos (the narrator/character in the memoirs as well as
the real-life author) seek to break the social norms that hamper “the real” social
relations, the normativeness of Candido’s analyses tends to go unnoticed by means
of an identification between the critic’s and the writer’s points of view.
Identification not only drives normativeness away from the critic’s field of vision,
but it also hampers our perception of the investments that the critic and author make
in their points of view. It therefore allows the critic to construct a teleology that, in
*
“nostalgia for a depurated humanity.”
^ “one decants what is genuine from what is false.”
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48
attaining its end, dispels all of the phantasms. In so doing, however, the critic
takes the relativity of norms for a natural (but also logical) development of the mind
one may call a critical Bildung and enlightenment, and which Candido spells out for
the reader in his analyses.4 Neither of the two, however, permits us to conceive the
phantasm in any other form than that of a deformation, since they should enable us to
see precisely that which phantasms deform. To my eyes, Santa Rosa’s pictorial
translation of Ramos’s novel evinces what the phantasm’s presence in Valerio’s
room represents, besides deformation.
In an article written on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Caetes. Antonio
Candido briefly analyzes the cover that Santa Rosa composed for the first edition
of the novel in 1933 (see a reproduction of the cover in Candido’s Ficyao e confissao
[93; unnumbered]). He rightly observes that Santa Rosa was able to represent the
general “movement” of the novel by creating a space that is divided into two planes
(“No aparecimento” 94). On the plane of fantasy, the protagonist and narrator, Joao
Valerio, attempts to write a novel in which he tells the story of the Caete Indians,
who, according to historical records, ate bishop Dom Pero Fernandes Sardinha
around 1556. On the plane of the real, Joao Valerio recounts his “life experiences”
(94), which are centered on Valerio’s love affair with his boss’s wife, Luisa.
According to Candido, Santa Rosa’s picture depicts the ambiguity constitutive of
Ramos’s novel. For Valerio’s failure to write a novel on the cannibalistic episode of
Brazilian history, which Santa Rosa perhaps represents in the blankness of the page
Valerio has before him, is counterposed by his successful affair. Thus, Candido
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49
affirms, “enquanto os caetes se esvaem no nivel do irreal, Luisa penetra
surdamente no espago do narrador, dando ao sonho uma carne cheia de realidade”
(94-95).*
Although Candido’s differentiation between the unreality of the Caete
Indians and the reality of Luisa may be justified by the spatial separation between the
room and a dark comer that, situated above Valerio’s head, appears to represent his
psyche in the form of a space where his mental images are projected, it seems to be
less so if we pay closer attention to Santa Rosa’s depiction of Luisa itself. For what
exactly does that carnality consist of and how does Santa Rosa represent it? One
might, on the one hand, situate the figures representing both Joao Valerio and Luisa
on the same level of “reality,” inasmuch as they both portray characters that, if one
agrees with the fictional pact, one should take for “real” persons. In this sense, one
might say that these two figures are on a level of reality different from that of the
figures representing the Indians, since the latter do not point to any “real” person one
may identify, as a reader, within the novel. They constitute, instead, a representation
of Joao Valerio’s fictional recreation of the Caete Indians.
If, however, Valerio and Luisa are on the same level of “reality” (or
representation), how does one account for the differences in the depiction of the two
characters? For, whereas Santa Rosa represents Joao Valerio in his full body, with
his right leg hidden behind a table or desk, one can only see part of Luisa’s face,
neck, and shoulders. Since her figure is situated on the lower right comer of the
illustration, one might see it as performing the movement that Candido points out in
his analysis: Luisa gradually penetrates the space of the narrator. Indeed, the red that
Santa Rosa uses to contrast Luisa with the floor, and which appears to slide off the
*
“whereas the Caete Indians fade into the unreal, Luisa softly penetrates in the space of the narrator,
providing dreams with a flesh MI of reality.”
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50
wall and onto the floor, does suggest a movement from the corner to the center of
the picture. Nevertheless, how does one interpret the fact that, even though in
relation to the floor her figure is situated on a plane closer to the viewer — a
perspective that the superposition of her figure on the wall produces the figure of
Luisa is transparent to the viewers’ eyes, allowing us to see her contour (if not her
shoulder) at the same time that we see the floor?5 Moreover, how does one explain
the discrepancy between the sizes of the figures of Luisa and Joao Valerio, and
which cannot be attributed to perspective, in the pictorial sense of the term? This
discrepancy suggests another possible reading of Santa Rosa’s picture: perhaps what
one sees is not Santa Rosa’s representation of Luisa, but rather his representation of
Joao Valerio’s representation of her, which would explain the differences between
the two figures.
For not only is Luisa the only lateral figure in the picture (all of the others are
frontal ones), but it clearly resembles the flat and two-dimensional figures that
Gauguin, drawing on Egyptian art and Japanese prints, portrayed in his paintings. If
this observation is correct, then the anti-naturalist technique that Santa Rosa utilizes
to depict the figure of Luisa draws it closer not only to the figures of the Caete
Indians, insofar as they are all representations of representations, but also to the
plane of fantasy on which Candido situates the latter. In fact, it is hard to pinpoint,
within the picture, whether the figure of Luisa belongs to the plane of fantasy or to
that of reality, not only because of the techniques Santa Rosa uses to compose the
figure, but also because he depicts the room in which Joao Valerio finds himself—
and which corresponds, within the picture, to the “space of the narrator” Candido
identifies in the novel -- according to an expressionist perspective. Although
expressionist techniques are more readily noticeable in Angustia than in Caetes. one
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51
should not underestimate Santa Rosa’s expressionist rendering of Ramos’s first
novel.6 For, in analyzing Santa Rosa’s picture in so close a connection with the story
line of Ramos’s novel, therefore associating a visual composition with the narrativity
proper to prose writing, Candido overlooks certain aspects of Santa Rosa’s “graphic
reading” of the novel.
Rather than represent the carnality of the real gradually dissolving the
phantasmatic, the Gauguinian figure of Luisa that one sees in contrast with an
expressionist perspective of a room may very well constitute, not unlike the figure of
the Caete Indians, a phantasmatic construct. For, as Candido himself points out,
scenes and characters in Caetes are always perceived in relation to the first-person
narrator. As an author, Graciliano Ramos himself demonstrates a “preocupagao
ininterrupta com o caso individual, com o angulo do individuo singular, que e — e
sera — o seu modo de encarar a realidade” (Candido, “Ficgao” 17).* In fact, one may
see the figures of Luisa and the Caete Indians in Santa Rosa’s picture as representing
two of Joao Valerio’s phantasmatic investments, which are, however, never
dissociated from his objective social inventments. While the Caete Indians and
Luisa inhabit, as phantasms, the same space that Joao Valerio does, Valerio is sitting
at the table, pen in hand. He is going to write his novel on the Caete Indians. If
phantasms may thus present his own desires to the subject, social investments, in
evincing the limitations imposed by one’s social position, poses to the subject, as a
social agent, the conditions of possibility for their realization. As Candido also notes
in relation to Ramos’s first novel, “[n]o amago do acontecimento esta sempre o
*
“endless preoccupation with the individual case, with the point of view of an individual, which is -
and will be — the way he perceives reality.”
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52
corafao do personagem central, dominante, impondo na visao das coisas a sua
posigao especifica” (“Ficsao” 17).*
Joao Valerio’s specific position, as Santa Rosa suggests by means of the
arrangement of colors, is an ambiguous one. While utilizing only four colors —
black, ocher, red, and brown Santa Rosa establishes, for the most part, contrasts
between two of these colors. The floor is thus checkered almost entirely black and
ocher; one of the walls is brown, and the other is red; on the red wall a small, black
window stands out; and Luisa is depicted in black and ocher. Although Santa Rosa
creates all of the elements in the picture by means of this contrast, he uses it in a
particular way when composing the figures of the Caete Indians and of Joao Valerio.
The contrastive colors divide the figures into two halves, as if they were constituted
by two different, unmixed (and perhaps even conflicting) parts. In the analysis that
follows, I read Ramos’s Caetes in a manner that is similar to Santa Rosa’s graphic
reading of the novel, examining the effectivity of Joao Valerio’s phantasmatic/social
investments in relation to his ambiguous position and the conditions of profitability
that such a position imposes on him.
2.2. Phanstasmatic Scenes and Objective Social Investments
In Ramos’s Caetes. the first phantasmatic construct appears in the first
chapter of the novel in a passage in which, after having kissed Luisa twice on the
back of her neck, Joao Valerio considers the possible effects of his “atrevimento”
[“insolence”] -- as he calls it — in case it became publicly known: “Naturalmente ela
avisaria o marido. Adriao Teixeira com certeza ia dizer-me: ‘Voce, meu filho, nao
presta.’ E mandaria balancear a casa Teixeira & Irmao, onde eu era guarda-livros e
"|i|n the veiy core of events lies the heart of the main character, dominant, imposing on the vision of
things his specific position.”
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53
interessado, para afastar-me da sociedade. O inventario e rapido num
estabelecimento que so vende aguardente, alcool e a?ucar” (8). The first imagined
consequence of his actions is thus a moral evaluation and a practical action that are
linked to each other by a relation that is not merely an addition, as the use of the
conjunction “and” might initially indicate. Rather, the discursive sequence through
which Joao Valerio constructs the phantasmatic scene suggests a temporal
succession that is organized by a causal relation: Joao Valerio would first be morally
evaluated and then fired because of the low value that, by means of a transference of
values (from the social practice, adultery, to the social agent who performs it),
Adriao might assign to him.
Causality is not, however, the only relation binding the moral evaluation and
the practical action. There is a parallelism between one and the other, a parallelism
that, implicit in the imagined moral evaluation, Joao Valerio gradually spells out in
his fantasy. For Adriao’s statement that Joao Valerio “nao presta” may very well be
substituted by the phrase “nao vale nada,” which, because of the double semantic
field in which one may use the verb “valer” [“to be worth”] and the noun “valor”
[“value”] (the moral or ethical and the economic semantic fields), suggests an
affinity between the processes of creation of both moral and economic values. Such
a relation between the two types of values is more explicit in the subsequent scene in
Joao Valerio’s phantasmatic construct:
Vitorino Teixeira, acavalando os oculos de ouro no grosso nariz vermelho,
abriria o coff e, contaria o meu saldo com lentidao e, pondo o dinheiro sobre a
carteira, deixaria cair, naquela voz morosa e nasal, que da arrepios, este epllogo
arrasador: ‘Tome la, Joao Valerio, veja se confere. Nos julgavamos que o
*
“She would obviously tell it to her husband. Adriao Teixeira would certainly say: ‘You’re no good,
sonny. ’ And he would have the accounts from Teixeira & Bros., where I worked as bookkeeper and
shared the profits, balanced in order to exclude me from the firm. The inventory is quick in a business
that only sells liquor, alcohol, and sugar.”
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54
Valerio fosse homem direito. Enganamo-nos: e um traste.’ E eu sairia
escorra?ado, morto de vergonha. (8)
Within Joao Valerio’s fantasy, the affinity is based upon the idea of a possible
discrepancy between the thing or person evaluated and its or his value, an idea that is
not only implicit in the act of checking one’s balance (that is, verifying if an amount
of money corresponds to the value of one’s shares in the profits of a firm), but is also
clearly articulated by Vitorino, Adriao’s brother and partner in the firm. To what
they thought Joao Valerio “valued,” Vitorino opposes his “actual” value, marking the
discrepancy between one and the other values with the notion of error. In fact, what
Joao Valerio’s attraction to Luisa reveals, within his fantasy, is exactly the
discrepancy between his “false” and “actual” values, which is accentuated once the
news on the attempted adultery circulate through town, and a new series of devaluing
distortions take place. In his fantasy, Joao Valerio conjectures: “Segredo que quatro
pessoas sabem transpira. alguma coisa havia de propalar-se na cidade. D. Engracia
teceria mexericos; o Neves forjaria uma calunia; Nicolau Varejao narraria mentiras
espantosas” (8).^ He thus perceives the circulation of information (and the possible
delapidation of value depending in part on the credibility of the information)
according to a sequence of communicative situations in which the distance between
the factual and the linguistic gradually increases: the gossip, which may be truthful
to the fact, becomes first a calumny and later incredible lies.
In recognizing the ideology that gives coherence to the social group and upon
which the evaluative moral scale is based, Joao Valerio not only reproduces both
*
“Vitorino Teixeira, mounting his golden glasses on his red, thick nose, would open the safe,
sluggishly check my balance out and, placing the money on top o f the desk, drop, in that slow-paced
and nasal voice that gives me the chills, this devastating epilogue: ‘Here you are, Joao Valerio, check
it. We thought that Valerio was an honest man. We were wrong: he is a good-for-nothing. ’ And I
would leave the place as if I had been chased away, M l o f shame.”
“A secret that four people know always leaks: something would certainly be propagated in town. D.
Engracia would tell gossips; Neves would forge a calumny; Nicolau Varejao would recount incredible
lies.”
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55
ideology and values, but also produces for himself, by means of the narration of a
possible social exchange, a practical knowledge of the structure of social relations
within his social group. It therefore encompasses not only the ideological and
normative, but also the processes that occur within the structure of social relations.
When Joao Valerio imagines the propagation of the news in town, for example, he
produces for himself a practical knowledge of two specific structural processes: first,
goods (including linguistic products such as the sentence “Joao Valerio kissed his
boss’ wife on the back of her neck”) acquire or lose symbolic value both within a
system of production, consumption, and circulation, and according to the positions of
the social agents among whom goods are produced, consumed, and circulated;
second, within discourse social agents produce symbolic values that, by means of an
articulation between discourse and other social practices, may or may not gain
currency, as the context that Joao Valerio constructs for his fantasy indicates.
Before Joao Valerio narrates the fantasy in which he is morally devalued in
the eyes of the townspeople, he considers. “Como fiz aquilo? Deus do ceu! Lan?ar
em tamanha perturba?ao uma criaturinha delicada e sensivel! Tive raiva de mim.
Animal estupido e lubrico” (7-8).* And right after the narration of the fantasy, he
adds:
Assim pensando, eu experimentava grande mal-estar, menos pelos dissabores
que as chocalhices me trariam que por antever misturado a elas o nome de
Luisa.
Eu amava aquela mulher. Nunca Ihe havia dito nada, porque sou timido,
mas a noite fazia-lhe sozinho confidencias apaixonadas e passava uma hora,
antes de adormecer, a acaricia-la mentalmente. Ate certo ponto isto bastava a
minha natureza preguifosa. (8 )1
*
“How could I have done that? Oh my god! To thrust into such a turmoil a delicate and sensitive
creature like her! I hated myself. Stupid and lubricous animal.”
^ “As I thought that, I felt a deep malaise, not for the vexation that the tattle would bring me, but
because I could foresee how Luisa’s name would be enmeshed in all that. / 1 loved that woman. I had
never told her anything because I’m shy, but at night I passionately confessed m yself to her and spent
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56
In both excerpts, Joao Valerio compensates for the devaluation inscribed in his
fantasy with a valorization of his act, which is realized, in the first passage, by means
of a valorization of Luisa, who is characterized by ideal feminine traits, and of a
concomitant self-devalutation. In the second excerpt, the valorization of Joao
Valerio’s act is performed through an identification with a positive value, namely
romantic love. One should note, however, that Valerio does not fully invest in such
identification, since he subsequently admits to having a “lazy nature,” which
predisposes him to an idealized love as much as the Romantic nature one generally
associates with it.
As if a full profit could not be made out of this identification, a full
investment also becomes senseless. The full profit, it appears, would only have been
possible had the notion of Romantic love retained its full value, which was achieved
precisely when it was the most current, that is, during the Romantic period. Hence,
only through a partial investment in this identification can Valerio fully profit from
it. Since the notion of Romantic love is no longer fully valued, a devaluation may
produce the effect of a “real” value, which is reinforced by the fact that it reproduces
current concepts, such as the almost pathetic character of Romantic love. Without
this devaluation, investors risk losing it all, insofar as full valorization is
transformed, given the state of the market, in full devaluation. In combining
devaluation and valorization, Valerio is able to achieve a correction of value that
counterbalances the devaluation inscribed in his fantasy.
Given that investments that may generate profits require a certain amount of
starting capital, Joao Valerio constantly frames his fantasies with a positive self-
evaluation in order to ascertain that he possesses the capital necessary for the
a whole hour, before falling asleep, mentally caressing her. To a certain extent, that sufficed my lazy
nature.”
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57
investments in which he phantasmatically engages. In his second fantasy, for
example, Joao Valerio imagines himself married to Luisa:
Embrenhei-me numa fantasia doida por ai alem, de tal sorte que em poucos
minutos Adriao se finou, Padre Atanasio pos a estola sobre a minha mao e a de
Luisa, os meninos cresceram, gordos, vermelhos, dois machos e duas femeas. A
meia-noite andavamos pelo Rio de Janeiro; os rapazes estavam na academia
tudo sabido, quase doutor; uma pequena tinha casado com um medico, a outra
com um fazendeiro -- e nos iamos no dia seguinte visita-las em Sao Paulo. (21)
The scene is clearly marked by several indexes of capital — the healthy kids, the
leisure walk, the location of the scene in the nation’s capital, the boys’ high degree of
education, and the girls’ good matches — , which are, to a certain degree, all derived
from the starting economic capital. Since Luisa is the one who possesses that
capital, Joao Valerio must raise some capital that might justify his phantasmatic
investment:
Veio-me um pensamento agradavel. Talvez gostasse de mim. Era possivel.
Olhei-me ao espelho. Tenho o nariz bem feito, os olhos azuis, os dentes
brancos, o cabelo louro -- vantagens. Que diabo! Se ela me preferisse ao
marido, nao fazia mau negocio. E quando o velhote morresse ..., eu amarrava-
me a ela, passava a socio da firma e engendrava filhos muito bonitos. (20-21)*
Within Valerio’s discourse, his physical traits are thus convertible into symbolic
capital that not only is appropriate to the position he might occupy as Luisa’s
husband, but is also equivalent to the capital she invests herself.
Social ties, because they entail group investments and a correspondence
between positions and capital, require, for the most part, an equivalence of capital, as
“I became absorbed in such a wild fantasy that within a few minutes Adriao passed away; Father
Atanasio laid the stole on both my hands and Luisa’s; the children grew up, big, ruddy, two boys and
two girls. At midnight, we strolled around Rio de Janeiro; the boys were in college, all learned,
almost doctors and lawyers; one o f the girls had married a doctor, and the other a landowner - and we
would visit them the next day in Sao Paulo.”
“Suddenly a pleasant thought dawned on me. Perhaps she liked me. That was not impossible. I
looked at m yself in the mirror. I have a well-shaped nose, blue eyes, white teeth, blond hair -
advantages. What the heck! If she chose me over her husband, site wouldn’t make a bad deal. And
after the old man died,..., I’d get hitched, become a partner in the firm and fathered a few handsome
kids.”
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Isidoro Pinheiro, Valerio’s closest friend, is constantly reminding him. Pinheiro
does so by noticing, on the one hand, his lack of capital to marry either Marta
Varejao, the heiress to the well-off D. Engracia — “Eu, se nao tivesse trinta e oito
%
anos, um emprego tao besta e um desconchavo no cora?ao, atirava-me a ela” (18) —
, or Clementina, daughter to Nazare, the notary — “Eu, se nao fosse cardiaco,
hepatico, artritico e sifilitico, tinha casado com ela” (121 ) j On the other hand, he
points out to Valerio the good chances he has of marrying Marta Varejao, pondering
the qualities that both possess (i.e., the equivalence of capital). Marta is “bonita,
bem educada, toca piano, esteve no colegio das freiras” (32)* and will inherit a huge
fortune consisting of buildings, estates, and cattle (33), whereas Valerio is “bem-
apessoado, tern boas relates, sabe escritura?ao mercantil e um bocado de
aritmetica” (33).§
Isidoro’s “insistence” on marrying Valerio with Marta — to use Valerio’s own
term — triggers in him a re-evaluation of the girl. The initial negative appraisal,
which focused on the fact that her biological father was a bum and on the girl’s
exaggerated religiousness (18), is substituted by a positive one, in which economic
capital is superposed to (if it does not generate) the symbolic capital derived from
Marta’s physical, behavioral, and occupational characteristics. In Valerio’s second
thoughts, Marta
. . . era bonita, e os bens da viuva davam-lhe encantos que a principio eu nao
tinha visto.
Tocava piano. Naquele momento reconheci no piano um caminho seguro
para a perfeigao Falava frances. Nao havia certamente exercicio mais honesto
que falar fran ces, lin g u a admiravel. Fazia flores de parafina. Comprendi que as
*
“If I weren’t thirty-eight years old; if I didn’t have such a lousy job and a weak heart, I would
certainly throw m yself at her.”
+ “If I weren’t a cardiac, with hepatic problems, arthritis, and syphylis, I would have married her.”
* “pretty and well-mannered; she plays the piano and got her education in a nuns’ school.”
§ “good-looking; [he] has good relations, knows accounting and quite a bit of arithmetic.”
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59
flores de parafina eram na realidade os unicos objetos uteis. O resto nao valia
nada. (35)
This perhaps cynical reevaluation of Marta leads Valerio to his third fantasy:
Ficavamos noivos, casavamos, D. Engracia morria. Imaginei-me proprietario,
vendendo tudo, arredondando ai uns quinhentos contos, indo viver no Rio de
Janeiro com Marta, entre romances franceses, papeis de musica e flores de
parafina. Onde iria morar? Na Tijuca, em Santa Teresa, ou em Copacabana, um
dos bairros que vi nos jomais. Eu seria um marido exemplar e Marta uma
companheira deliciosa, dessas fabricadas por poetas solteiros. Atribui-lhe os
filhos destinados a Luisa, quatro diabretes fortes e espertos. (35) ^
The scene is clearly a variation of the one he imagines in relation to Luisa, for, as in
the scene with Luisa, Valerio accumulates capital through marriage, moves to the
nation’s capital, and leads a life of leisure. It is thus constructed by means of a
permutation of agents (Marta for Luisa), without, however, altering its basic content,
namely the accumulation of capital. Nonetheless, it does dislocate an important
element from one scene to the next. Economic capital, which is only mentioned on
the margins in the fantasy with Luisa (he would become a partner in the firm
inherited by Luisa as a widow [21]), becomes central in the scene with Marta, in
whom Valerio never invests emotionally. In this sense, the permutation of agents
also entails a substitution in the social roles Valerio sees himself performing: the
lover/husband roles of the second fantasy are replaced by the propertyless/proprietor
of the third one. In articulating in his fantasies different permutations (between
social positions, social roles, or social agents), Valerio not only recognizes the
*
“was pretty, and the widow’s properties endowed her with the graces that I had not initially
discovered. / She played the piano. At that moment I saw in the piano the safest path to perfection.
She spoke French. There was undoubtedly no activity more honest than speaking French, a
marvelous language. She made paraffin flowers. And I understood how paraffin flowers were, in
fact, the only useful objects. Everything else was worthless.”
t
“We got engaged and then married. D. Engracia died. I fancied m yself a proprietor, selling
everything, rounding up about five hundred contos, moving to Rio de Janeiro with Marta, among
French novels, music scores, and paraffin flowers. Where would we live? In Tijuca, Santa Teresa, or
Copacabana, any o f those neighborhoods I read about in the papers. I would be a model o f a husband
and Marta an enchanting soul mate, like those conceived by bachelor poets. I assigned to her the
children that were destined to Luisa, four strong and smart little brats.”
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symbolic division of social space, but also constructs, even though
phantasmatically, possible reorganizations of that space while at the same time
producing a practical knowledge of the need for objective investments. The frame
he constructs for his third fantasy indicates some of the investments he might make:
attend church services in order to flirt with Marta; send her letters “cheias de
inflamagoes alambicadas, versos de Olavo Bilac e frases estrangeiras, dessas que
vem nas folhas cor-de-rosa do pequeno Larousse;” * go talk to her by her window, in
the evenings; kiss her after a week of flirtation (35).
Valerio’s reference to a possible utilization of Bilac’s poetry in his letters
demonstrates a knowledge of the contemporary state of the linguistic market -
which valorized a sort of diffused form of Parnassian aesthetics — and of the
possibility of different allocations of capital. For the cultural and linguistic capital
he imagines he might invest in a possible marriage with Marta may also be deployed
for the construction of a literary life, which constitutes, in itself, another investment
(at the same time phantasmatic and objective) that parallels those he makes in a
possible marriage with either Luisa or Marta.7
His investment in literary production is first mentioned in the second chapter.
Writing a letter to D. Engracia in order to notify her that the money she had invested
was now available, Valerio reflects on how the social world is “mal arranjado”
[“poorly ordered”] (13). D. Engracia, who is extremely rich and lives in a house as
big as a convent, only cares about attending the church services, communing, and
praying, whereas he, “mo?o, que sabia metrificaQao, vantajosa prenda, colaborava na
Semana de Padre Atanasio e tinha um romance come^ado na gaveta” (13),^ had to
*
“full o f affected inflammation, verses by Olavo Bilac, and foreign phrases, like the ones we find on
the pink pages of the small Larousse.”
“a young man who knew versification, an advantageous endowment, collaborated in Father
Atanasio’s weekly paper, the Semana. and had a half-written novel sitting in a drawer.”
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61
waste his life working for the Teixeiras. Similarly, he thinks how unfair it is that
Adriao, “um velhote calvo, amarelo, reumatico, encharcado de tisanas” (13),* should
be married to Luisa and not him. “Eu, sim,” he considers, “estava a calhar para
marido dela, que sou desempenado, gozo saude e arranho literatura” (13).+ The
disorganization of the social world, insofar as social agents with little value should —
in his eyes — occupy the positions and possess the capital that other agents with more
value, such as a young man of letters like himself, did not, might have been
objectively reconfigured had Valerio been able to profit from an investment in
literary production.
After a dialogue in which several characters debate the artistic value of the
statues created by Cassiano, an illiterate handicapped man with no formal education
in the arts, Valerio speculates about the possible profit he might make out of his
novel:
Talvez eu pudesse tambem, com exigua ciencia e aturado esforgo, chegar um
dia a alinhavar os meus caetes. Nao que esperasse embasbacar os povos do
futuro. Oh! nao! As minhas ambigoes sao modestas. Contentava-me um
triunfo caseiro e transitorio, que impressionasse Luisa, Marta Varejao, os
Mendonga, Evaristo Barroca. Desejava que nas barbearias, no cinema, na
farmacia do Neves, no cafe Bacurau, dissessem: ‘Entao ja leram o romance do
Valerio?’ Ou que, na redagao da Semana. em discussdes entre Isidoro e Padre
Atanasio, a minha autoridade fosse invocada: ‘Isto de selvagens e historias
velhas e com o Valerio.’ (47) *
The authority Valerio associates with the imaginary publication of his novel, and
which is a form of symbolic capital derived from cultural and linguistic capital,
“a bald, yellow, rheumatic old man, drenched with tisane.”
+
“I’m the one fit for Luisa, not him; I am healthy, have good legs, and know a little bit of literature.”
* “Perhaps I could, too, with a meager knowledge and a persistent effort, one day be able to baste my
caetes. Not that I expected to flabbergast the future peoples. Oh! no! My ambition is modest. I would
be pleased with a transitory and homespun type o f triumph that impressed Luisa, Marta Varejao, the
Mendonga’s, Evaristo Barroca. I wished that at the barber’s, the cinema, at Neves’s pharmacy, at the
Bacurau cafe, they said: ‘Say, have you read Valerio’s novel?’ Or that, at the newsroom o f the
Semana in the discussions between Isidoro and Father Atanasio, my authority were invoked: ‘Valerio
is the one who knows about savages and old stories.’”
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62
would thus not only open up a social space regulated by a type of symbolic power
that is most favorable to him, but also allow him to make other profits and
investments (this is the case with Evaristo Barroca, the lawyer who launches a
successful career in politics, as we shall see).
For Valerio, an investment in literary production or, more specifically, in the
writing of a historical novel that recounts a specific event of the encounter between
the Caete Indians with the Portuguese colonizers, draws on two central figures in
Brazilian Indianist literature. Valerio says: “Li, na escola primaria, uns carapetoes
interessantes no Gongalves Dias e no Alencar, mas ja esqueci quase tudo. Sorria-me,
entretanto, a esperanga de poder transformar esse material arcaico numa brochura de
cem a duzentas paginas cheia de lorotas em bom estilo . .(20).* His allusion to
Gonsalves Dias and to Alencar, just like his possible utilization of Bilac’s verses in
his letter to Marta, indicates a practical knowledge of a possible transference of
capital. The literary and symbolic capital inscribed in the names Gongalves Dias and
Jose de Alencar, in other words, might be appropriated in such a way that they would
foster the production of capital in relation to the construction of a new literary name:
Joao Valerio. In this sense, Valerio’s novel may also be read in relation to
Gonsalves Dias’s poetry and Alencar’s novels.
In fact, Valerio’s narrative techniques, as we can reconstruct them from the
descriptions of his own writings, are quite similar to the ones the two Romantic
writers utilize.8 Like Gonsalves Dias and Alencar, Valerio uses, within a Portuguese
sentence, a vocabulary that is related to the life of the Indians and taken mostly from
Tupi-Guarani.9 He says of his own ordeal with writing: “Suando, escrevi dez tiras
“I read, in elementary school, some interesting fibs in Gongalves Dias and Alencar, but I’ ve
forgotten almost everything. However, the possibility o f transforming this archaic material into a one
to two-hundred-page volume full of lies but in good style smiled on me . . .
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salpicadas de maracas, igagabas, penas de araras, cestos, redes de caroa, jiraus,
cabalas, arcos e tacapes” (40).* He also makes use of an exuberant scenery — “Catei
algumas expressoes infelizes e introduzi na floresta, batida pelo vento, uma
quantidade consideravel de passaros a cantar, macacos e saguis em danga acrobatica
pelos ramos, cutias ariscas espreitando a beira da caigara” (41) * — and, as Bulh5es
notes (120-21), of forceful adjectivation — “idealizara um grande naufragio cheio de
adjetivos energicos” (42).*
If, like Golgalves Dias and Alencar, Valerio were able to utilize the Indians’
culture and to transform historical accounts into fictional narratives, he might gain
the authority he aspired for, given the valorization of Indianism within the cultural
construction of a Brazilian national identity.1 0 Valerio notes: “O meu fito realmente
era empregar uma palavra de grande efeito: tibicoara. Se alguem me lesse, pensaria
talvez que entendo de tupi, e isto me seria agradavel” (40).§ Although critics have
read Ramos’s references to the anthropophagous historical event and to Indianism
within the context of the Modernist reappropriation of the Brazilian Native Indians’
past (see Malard [34-35] and Teles [“Escrituragao da escrita” 403-404]), such a
contextualization may only be applied to Ramos, the author, not Valerio, the
narrator. Within the context of the novel, there are only references to the Romantic
movement, not to the Modernist one.1 1 In fact, Valerio not only refers to Gongalves
Dias and Alencar, but also alludes to some of their texts. As Gilberto Mendonga
Teles points out, the phrase “na floresta, batida pelo vento” [“in the forest, swept by
*
“Sweating, I wrote ten lines speckled with maracas, igagabas, feathers of macaws, baskets,
hammocks made of caro4 jiraus, calabashes, bows, and tacapes.”
“I culled a few unfortunate expressions and introduced in the forest, swept by the wind, a large
number o f birds, singing, monkeys and saguins in an acrobatic danse from branch to branch,
suspicious agoutis peeking on the edge o f a caigara.”
* “I had idealized a great shipwreck full o f energetic adjectives.”
^ “My intent was actually to utilize a word o f great impact: tibicoara. If someone read my book, he
might perhaps think that I know Tupi, and that would please me.”
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64
the wind”] is taken from the first two lines of Gonsalves Dias’s poem “O canto do
guerreiro” [“The Song of the Warrior”] (“Escrituragao da escrita” 404-405); and one
should add, to Teles’s observation, at least two other allusions: the expression “cutias
ariscas” [“suspicious agoutis”] appears at the end of the chapter “A cagada” [“The
Hunting”] in Alencar’s O guarani (40); and the Tupi nouns “enduape” and “canitar”
are found in Gonsalves Dias’s poem “I-Juca-Pirama” (Poesias completas 398).
As models and parameters for the type of investment and profits Valerio
attempts to make, Gongalves Dias’s and Alencar’s intellectual trajectories also
indicate the amount and the type of capital necessary for such an investment and
profits. Nonetheless, Valerio possesses neither the cultural/historical knowledge
(“Tambem aventurar-me a fabricar um romance historico sem conhecer historia!”
[19])* nor the linguistic skills that would enable him to write a historical novel in the
same manner that both Golgalves Dias and Alencar had previously written and
19
published Indianist literature. As both Malard (35) and Teles (“Escrituragao da
escrita” 404) observe, Ramos’s narrative mocks Valerio’s attempt to put up a fagade
of erudition. Unable to remember the meaning of the word “enduape,” which is a
kind of a feathered belt the Indians wore over their buttocks, in his description of the
Caete Indians Valerio uses it as if it signified a headdress (40), thus demonstrating,
by his misuse, his lack of cultural and linguistic capital.
Moreover, every time he mentions his novel, Valerio points out his inability
to accomplish his task. The writing of the novel does not advance, “encrencado
miseravelmente no segundo capitulo” (13)/ His prose is “chata, imensamente chata,
com erros” (19),* and he finds such a great difficulty in writing that he spends two
*
“But to venture to fabricate a historical novel without knowing history!”
* “miserably stuck in the second chapter.”
“boring, tremendously boring, with errors”
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65
whole weeks without jotting down a single word (it actually takes him five years
to barely finish the first two chapters [20]). All this difficulty does not go unnoticed,
and neither does the oddity of his undertaking (“Que estupidez capacitar-me de que a
construpao de um livro era empreitada para mim!” [19]),* which requires certain
dispositions that he cannot identify as his own: “Talvez nao fosse mau aprender um
pouco de historia para concluir o romance. Mas nao posso aprender historia sem
estudar. E viver como o Dr. Liberato e Nazare, curvados sobre livros, matutando,
anotando, ganhando corcunda, e terrivel. Nao tenho paciencia” (165).+
Although Valerio is constantly pointing out his lack of capital, his
investments in certain linguistic products indicate a recognition of their possible
effects and effectivity, for the “palavra de grande efeito” [“word of great impact”]
Valerio considers using not only is inscribed within a specific linguistic market (and
therefore the effects this word produces in relation to other speakers depend on the
value that it may acquire within that market), but it may also be favorable, according
to its market value, to the type of profits Valerio intends to make, such as gaining
social authority. He thus deploys his linguistic and cultural capital in order to
produce the desired effects: he uses the word “irreprochavel” [“irreproachable”] (75
and 85), which he did not know but had heard from Evaristo Barroca, the lawyer and
later politician; he refers to a French proverb that he had heard from Marta and that
he could only partially recall (123); he quotes a sentence from the Ecclesiastes,
which he had per chance read when opening the Bible to get the money he kept in
there (123); and he praises Auguste Comte’s greatness, without knowing exactly
what kind of greatness that was (100).
*
“What a stupid idea to think that the construction of a book would be an undertaking for me!”
1 "
“Perhaps it wouldn’ t be such a bad idea to learn a little bit of history in order to conclude the novel.
But I can’ t learn history without studying. And to live like Dr. Liberato and Nazare, bent over books,
mulling, taking notes, gaining a hunchback, is terrible. I have no patience for that.”
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66
Since the production of certain effects and their possible effectivity takes
place within a market, it also entails a certain degree of competition and of
(sometimes differentiated) reproduction, by means of which social agents, in
recognizing the state of the market, may gain a sense of the most profitable
investments. Within Valerio’s narrative, several characters also attempt to produce
certain effects by means of a deployment of their linguistic or cultural capital.
Isidoro, for example, quotes Anatole France (91), mentions Poincare (192) and
Clemenceau (193), and makes use of Latin phrases such as “parce sepultis” (193).
None of them, however, are as successful as Evaristo Barroca in their deployment of
capital.1 3
As Malard (37) and Bulhoes (123) note, the characterization of Evaristo
Barroca is based on the figure of the “bacharel,” a graduate from a law school and
whose discourse was erudite and rhetorical.1 4 Bulhoes rightly observes that
Barroca’s discourse is laudatory and ornamental, insofar as he uses frequent
adjectivation and an overrefmed vocabulary, and that it is imbricated with what the
critic calls the “artifices of social ascension” (80). Just like Valerio, Barroca invests
in the possibility of producing certain effects and their effectivity by deploying his
cultural and linguistic capital. After praising the mayor in order to convince Valerio
to publish an article in A Semana in honor of the former, Barroca “ficou algum
tempo em silencio, esperando o efeito daquele afucar todo” (23).* As any
ornamental, laudatory discourse, Barroca’s praise of the mayor may produce a
double effect: on the one hand, he invests in the construction of an image of the
mayor, which, if the latter is associated with Barroca, may be quite profitable to him;
on the other hand, by deploying his linguistic capital, Barroca may acquire symbolic
*
“remained silent for a while, waiting to see the effect of all that sweet talk.”
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67
capital.1 5 The duplicity of the effects of Barroca’s discourse suggests that their
effectivity not only entails the deployment of different types of capital, but also takes
place in relation to objective social relations and practices.
As Bulhoes points out, there is a homology between Barroca’s use of
language and his gestures (76). Indeed, the lawyer performs, by means of the way he
carries his body before Valerio, the same type of social distance that he symbolically
establishes through language. From Valerio’s point of view, Barroca’s manners are
excessively cordial, and his uneasiness in Valerio’s room serves as a reminder of the
different social spaces he and Valerio occupy: “Evaristo avangou com gravidade, pos
o chapeu e a bengala sobre a mesa empoeirada, olhou com desconfianga a palha da
cadeira e sentou-se, sem se recostar, com medo de sujar a roupa” (22).* This
division of social space, between that of a lawyer and a bookkeeper (which is
evinced by Barroca and Valerio’s crosstalk: when the former refers to Fortunato, the
mayor, the latter takes him to be talking about Fortunato, the baker [23]), is the more
effective the more extensive is the homology between discourses and social signs
and practices.1 6 According to Valerio, “Evaristo continuou, aprumado, com os olhos
fixos [nele], movendo lentamente, num gesto de orador, a mao bem tratada, onde um
rubi punha em evidencia o seu grau de bacharel” (23). '
This complex homology between body posture, movements, regard, physical
care, and personal objects constructs such a cohesive image of Barroca (as Bulhoes
notes, Barroca’s image as an orator is gradually confirmed within the narrative [80])
that other characters in the novel misrecognize its very constructedness (i.e., the fact
*
“Evaristo stepped forward in a sober manner. He laid his hat and cane on top o f the dusty table,
looked suspiciously at the straw of the chair and sat down, without leaning back, afraid of dirtying his
clothes.”
1*
“Evaristo kept talking, upright, with his eyes fixed on [him], slowly moving, with an orator’s
gesture, the well-groomed hands, where a ruby made his law degree stand out.”
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68
that it is the result of the processes of familiarization with a specific habitus and of
accumulation of capital), taking it to be “natural.” Isidoro, for instance, affirms that
Barroca “nasceu para discursador” (75), and Nazare, the notary, says that Barroca
had been involved in politics ever since he teethed (128).* The naturalness with
which one takes up a habitus endows one with the more right and legitimacy to
occupy a position, since intentionality (and the conscious effort it implies) always
betrays one’s inadequacy for such a position. Valerio observes that, when Barroca
repeats the same sentence during a social gathering, for example, it does not have the
same effect as it did when said for the first time (78). Such a lessening of a
discursive effect is due, in part, to repetition (in the sense that the “originality” of the
phrase wears off) and to a possible limit in linguistic capital, which would tend to
devalue the speaker in relation to other speakers. However, this lessening may also
be attributed to an intentionality on the speaker’s part. According to Valerio’s
description, “Evaristo iniciou um palavreado sonoro, em que de novo encaixou a sa
politica filha da moral e da razao, mas a ffase repetida nao produziu efeito” (78).f
The idea that Barroca attempted to “insert” the same phrase within a different
linguistic production indicates not only a poor linguistic competence (for he did not
take into account the new context and therefore the appropriateness of such an
insertion), but also the speaker’s intention to produce a certain effect.
Throughout the novel, this is the only incident in which Barroca makes a bad
investment. When, in chapter four, he attempts to convince Valerio to publish the
article in praise of the mayor, for instance, he manages to do so, even though Valerio
perceives (and in fact admires) what he calls Barroca’s “talent” (26). Besides the
*
“was bom a public speaker.”
1"
“ Evaristo began with his sonorous gibberish, including again in his speech the sound politics,
daughter of moral and reason, but the repeated phrase produced no effect.”
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69
physical strategies we have seen and the rhetorical ones Bulhoes points out,
Barroca uses a high tone, common political ideologemes (the mayor has got a good
heart and protects the poor; he has no personal interests and comes from a noble
lineage [23]; the article is a matter of general interest [24]), and devalues his own
linguistic capital in relation to that of Valerio (24). In the long run, the investment
pays off, and Barroca becomes state deputy.
One should not, however, take the publication of the article as the sole cause
of his election, as Father Atanasio suggests (28). It constitutes, rather, an investment
among a series of multiple investments, without which one’s habitus is never
cohesive. Due to their multiplicity and the cohesiveness of habitus, investments
require a deployment of (and oftentimes a conversion of) different types of capital,
as Valerio notes regarding Barroca’s ascending trajectory:
Sim, senhor, e um alho, pensei. Faz seis anos que aqui chegou, pobre, saido de
fresco da academia, sem recomendaqoes, com os cotovelos no fio e os fundilhos
remendados. E la vai furando, verrumando. Grande clientela, relagoes com
gente boa. Construiu uma casa, comprou fazenda de gado e terra com
plantaqoes de cafe, colocou dinheiro nos bancos e veste-se no melhor alfaiate da
capital. Improvisa discursos com abundancia de chavoes sonoros, dan9a
admiravelmente, joga o poker com arte, toca flauta e impinge as senhoras
expressoes amanteigadas que elas recebem com deleite. (26)
In this brief description, Valerio points out precisely the series of multiple
investments that, in deploying different types of capital, Barroca makes. In fact,
Valerio appears to reconstruct, within his narrative, a probable sequence for
Barroca’s investments. The “bacharel” is able to accumulate social capital (his
*
“Oh, yes, he’s a smarty-pants, I thought. He came to town six years ago, broke, a newly graduate
without any recommendations, his jacket worn-out and his seats all patched. And there he goes,
pushing his way through, pestering others. Big clientele, relations with the best people. He built a
home, bought a cattle ranch and coffee plantations, put money in the bank and buys his clothes in the
best tailor in the capital. He improvises speeches with plenty o f sonorous cliches, danses amazingly
well, plays the flute and poker as an artist, and imposes on the townswomen buttery expressions that
they hear with pleasure.”
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70
clientele and his social relations) by means of his cultural capital (his formal
education as a lawyer). As a result, he begins to accumulate economic capital, which
he invests not only in economically profitable ventures, but also in socially profitable
ones, such as buying his clothes in the best tailor in the state capital. Parallel to that,
he deploys his linguistic and cultural capital to accumulate profitable social capital.
Indeed, the multiplicity of investments implies not only that they occur within a
certain series, but also that they often take place simultaneously. For the most exact
correspondence between position and habitus also requires a cohesion of capital and
investments. Barroca is thus able not only to ascend socially (half-way through the
story Nazare tells Valerio that, given the news he had been reading in the papers,
Barroca would most likely be nominated for Secretary of the Interior [127]), but also
to construct a cohesive image that corresponds to both the habitus he takes up and
the position he occupies.
Unlike Barroca, Valerio is never able to achieve the cohesiveness that
Barroca or Adriao do (at least not until the end of the novel), despising both the
lawyer/politician and his boss, the businessman. Valerio abominates Barroca’s
manners, which he finds “detestable” (22) and describes his discourse as
“trivialidades abjetas” (22), “burrices consideraveis . . . recheadas de adjetivos fofos”
(25), “sabujices” (25), “chaleirice” (28), and “palanlforio reles e posti^, de dar
engulhos” (77).* His investments in a political career are characterized as “baixeza”
[“base”] (28) and “safadezas” [“shameless”] (128), although Valerio himself
confesses his admiration for and his envy at Barroca’s “talent” (26 and 128) and
“mastery” (26). As for Adriao, Valerio admires his sense of business (13), which
He describes his discourse as “abject trivialities,” “incredible stupidities . . . filled with plump
adjectives,” “cajolery,” “fawning,” and “raffish, phony gibberish, enough to make one throw up.”
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71
contrasts with Valerio’s inaptitude for it, and he only devalues Adriao because he
is, within the love triangle, Valerio’s rival.
Such a disdain or incapacity for either politics or business might function
well within the cohesiveness of the habitus of a writer, which seems to constitute
Valerio’s main investment. Nonetheless, he neither has the necessary capital, as we
have seen, nor does he fully invest in such a habitus and its corresponding position.
When explaining to Adriao why he had suddenly stopped visiting (after he had
kissed Luisa on the back of her neck), for instance, Valerio affirms that he likes to
“escrevinhar” [“scribble”] in the evenings (36). Although one might interpret
Valerio’s assertion as a strategy of modesty (i.e., a strategy that maximizes one’s
profits by means of a symbolic devaluation that objectively valorizes one’s product),
it nevertheless indicates a recognition of the lesser value of literature in comparison
with business (one must bear in mind that Valerio’s addressee is Adriao, the owner
of the firm he works for) or even politics, which also appears when, in describing to
himself his own capital, Valerio says that “sabia metrificagao, vantajosa prenda”
(13).* In identifying literary production with the feminine social sphere (“prenda” is
a word associated mostly with feminine tasks), Valerio recognizes the dominated
position of literary production in relation to economics or politics. His depiction of
his cultural capital is thus somewhat ambiguous because it rests on an act of
devaluation, implied in the word “prenda,” and a valorization, which the
advantageousness of the “prenda” suggests.
One might say, however, that this ambiguity differentiates Valerio’s
investment in the position of writer from that of Adriao in the position of
businessman or from that of Barroca in the position of politician. Not only do they
*
“he knew versification, an advantageous endowment.”
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72
both invest, unambiguously, in their positions, but they also demonstrate a good
knowledge of the state of the market within their own specific fields. Adriao, for
example, is aware that, given the law of supply and demand, the state of the market
is favorable to a risky strategy in which he maximizes his profits by demonstrating,
symbolically, a disinterest in that which is, objectively, of great interest to him. He
thus asks Valerio to write a letter to D. Engracia, telling her that the money she had
invested was available and insinuating that they were not interested in renewing the
investment, even though, as his brother Vitorino reminds him, they actually were
(12-13). Similarly, Barroca demonstrates a good knowledge of the state of the
political field. In a conversation with Valerio, Father Atanasio, Adriao, and Nazare,
he not only hints that his point of view is more modem than that of Nazare or Adriao
(the former defends authoritarian governments and attacks formal education, and the
latter reinforces this attack by saying that the best mral workers were the illiterate
ones [80-81]), but also defends the ideas that would gain currency, within the
Brazilian political field, in the early 1930s: a true democracy with conscious electors
(78), the enlightenment of the masses, governed by a cultured elite (79), mandatory
education (80), and professional education (82).
Valerio, on the contrary, invests ambiguously both in literary production and
in the figure of the romantic lover, which often functions as a figuration of a
disposition within the habitus of the writer, namely the detachment from the
temporal. Nevertheless, one should note that his investment in the construction of an
image of romantic lover is a lot more cohesive than his investment in literary
production. As any fictional romantic lover, Valerio idealizes his love object by
identifying it with the feminine ideal (Luisa is delicate, sensitive [8], frank, good,
pure [56], and honest [86]) and by overvaluing it:
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Entretive-me durante um mes a oma-la com abundancia de virtudes raras.
Alem das que ela possui. . dei-lhe as outras. E lamentei que o meu espirito
minguado nao pudesse conceber perfeifoes maiores para jogar sobre ela. Nisto
se exauria o esforgo de que sou capaz. Devaneava — e nem sabia explicar-me. .
. . Luisa me dizia coisas lindas, que eu escutava enlevado, procurando um
alcance que nao tinham e que cheguei a descobrir. (56)
In overvaluing his love object, Valerio valorizes it in comparison with other possible
love objects (“Se Luisa me amasse, eu daria por ela de bom grado um milheiro de
Martas, um milhao de Clementinas” [53]/ and, at the same time, creates a distance
between himself and his love object, which becomes inaccessible to him (Valerio
confesses, for example, that, whereas Isidoro and D. Maria Jose sought their
happiness in love objects they could reach, he could not achieve his happiness,
inasmuch as his love object was not within his reach [121]). If, on the one hand, the
distance between the romantic lover and his object can only be surpassed
phantasmatically, as when Valerio dreams of Luisa (59), or by means of
contemplation (50 and 56), it is paralleled, on the other hand, by a fixation on the
love object (“Toda a minha alma estava empregada em adorar Luisa” [107])/ which
leads to an identification between the romantic lover and his object: “Luisa atirou-me
um olhar de desprezo, five a impressao de que em mim havia um desmoronamento”
(117).§ Such an identification fosters both a bipolar personality, in that the lover’s
mood is dependent on the loved object’s rejection or correspondence to the lover’s
affection, and a high degree of theatricality. In face of Luisa’s apparent irresolution
*
“I spent a whole month adorning her with an abundance of rare virtues. Besides the ones that she
possesses ..., I gave her the others. And I regreted that my meager spirit could not conceive o f
greater perfections to throw upon her. In such occupations I exhausted all the effort that I am capable
o f making. I daydreamed -- and could not even explain myself. . . . Luisa would tell me beautiful
things that I would hear, enraptured, searching for a breadth they did not have, but which I managed
to discover in the long run.”
' “If Luisa would only love me, I would willingly exchange a thousand Martas, a million Clementinas
for her.”
+
“ “All my sould was invested in adoring Luisa.”
® “Luisa glanced at me with disdain, and I had the impression that everything inside me collapsed.”
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74
towards Valerio’s love for her (neither rejecting nor corresponding to it), Valerio
phantasmatically asks Luisa “que [o] livrasse enfim daquela angustia demasiado
intensa para o [seu] pobre coragao” (86) * and considers committing suicide (96 and
133). Moreover, identified with his lover (that is, identified with his own love), the
romantic lover becomes so self-centered that he not only distances himself from the
social world, but also begins to perceive the objective social world in relation only to
his subjectivity. Valerio, for example, is constantly setting himself appart from the
other guests who attend Adriao and Luisa’s social gatherings (“Enquanto os amigos
em volta da mesa parolavam, eu ficava em silencio, recolhido, sem nada ouvir,
contemplando-a” [56]),’ and, after he declares his love for her, he is surprised that
“aquele extraordinario acontecimento nao alterasse a harmonia do universo” (60)7
In fact, the romantic lover transposes his subjectivity onto the objective world, as
when Valerio imagines that a star responds to his deeply felt outcry that Luisa loves
him (103).
Nonetheless, Valerio’s investment in the figure of the romantic lover is
gradually undermined by his physical attraction to Luisa: “Desejei-a dois meses com
uma intensidade que hoje me espanta. Um desejo violento, livre de todos os veus
com que a principio tentei encobri-lo. Amei-a com raiva e pressa, despi-me de
escrupulos que me importunavam, sonhei, como um doente, cenas lubricas de
arrepiar” (133).§ After his phyisical desire is consumed for the first time, he finds
Luisa “pequenina e fraca” [“small and weak”] (138) and the star that had responded
*
“to finally free [him] from such an intense anguish for a poor heart like his.”
t
While my friends, sitting at the table, chattered, I remained silent, withdrawn, not hearing a word,
contemplating her.”
+
“such an extraordinary occurrence should not alter universal harmony.”
^ “I desired her for two months with an intenseness that amazes me now. A violent desire, free from
all the veils with which I initially attempted to conceal it. I loved her in haste, with anger, disrobing
m yself o f all the scruples that bothered me; I dreamed, like a madman, lustful scenes that would make
any man shiver.”
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75
to him, and which he associated with his love for Luisa, smaller than before (139).
The disillusionment that Valerio experiences in face of the “real” Luisa (he states
that “[l]ivre dos abributos que lhe emprest[ara], Luisa [lhe] apareceu tal qual era”
[140]) * is the most accentuated when his love object (and also his love) is the most
devalued: first, when Valerio assumes that “Luisa [o] aproveitara como aproveitaria
outro nas [suas] condigoes” (140)/ which makes him have “pensamentos de avaro”
[“thoughts of a miser”] (141); second, when Nazare makes some remarks,
insinuating that he knows about Valerio’s affair with Luisa, Valerio has the
impression not only that “as maos do velho haviam tocado o corpo de Luisa” (153)/
but also that his love was comparable to the sexual intercourse that took place in the
town’s brothel (153). In both cases, the devaluation undermines the notion of a
priceless object in order to reinsert that object into the market. Within the logic of
the market, goods are always exchangeable (according to the capital that is invested
in their production), and values are constantly being negotiated, fluctuating
according to the state of the market.
In this sense, Valerio’s avarice (i.e., the lover’s possessiveness) is a form of
establishing a space that remains outside that logic and that is objectified in the
untouched body of his love object:
Decidi logo que um homem tao pratico [Adriao] nao havia ainda babujado o
bra?o de Luisa e que pelo menos esta parte do corpo dela nao lhe pertencia.
Convicfao idiota, evidentemente. Eu me contentava com o bra^o - e achava
excessivo. Uma felicidade imensa. Era assim que eu dizia comigo mesmo.
Julgava assentado que Luisa se conservaria perfeitamente honesta. E que eu
seria perfeitamente feliz. (86)§
*
"If]reed from the attributes that [he had] confered upon her, Luisa appeared to [him] exactly as she
was.”
^ “Luisa used him as she would have used any other man in [his] conditions.”
“the old man’s hands had touched Luisa’s body.”
§ “I soon decided that such a practical man [Adriao] had not yet slobbered Luisa’s arm and that at
least this part of her body did not belong to him. A stupid conviction, evidently. I was contented with
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76
Like this untouched, dismembered body, which Valerio himself considers a
“stupid conviction,” his claim that he wants Luisa’s soul, not her body is perceived
as a “exaltagao desarrazoada” [“unreasonable exaltation”] (153), and even his
attempt to revalorize Luisa by reestablishing the distance between himself and his
love object (he stops seeing her for a few days and is therefore able to perceive her
again as perfect [153]) is doomed to fail.
Unable to fully invest either in literary production or in the figure of the
romantic lover, Valerio appears to be a good example of that character which, within
Brazilian literature, Mario de Andrade calls the “ffacassado” [“loser”] (“Elegia”
189).* However, to his failed investments in literary production and in the figure of
the romantic lover, one must counterpose his successful investment in the position of
businessman, which is attained precisely because Valerio does not make but partial
investments and occupies an ambiguous position that is homologous to his
investments.^
At the beginning of his narrative, when Valerio is describing his
conversations with Adriao and Luisa, he states that “era para [ele] verdadeiro prazer
tomar parte em duas conversagoes cruzadas sobre moda e cambio” (8),* thus pointing
out the ambiguous position he occupies. Valerio partakes of both the feminine
sphere of artistic production (we have already seen how he characterizes his
knowledge of versification as a “prenda”) and the masculine sphere of commerce
her arm and thought that was excessive. An immense happiness. That was what I used to tell myself.
I considered it settled that Luisa would remain perfectly honest. And that I would be perfectly
happy.”
*
Mario de Andrade includes, in fact, Luis da Silva, the protagonist in Angustia. among the characters
he calls “o fracassado” (190). One might, nevertheless, also see Joao Valerio as another “firacassado”
for the most part of his trajectory.
^ In the narrative, Joao Valerio ambiguously uses the term “ambiguity,” which might characterize,
within its context, Luisa’s feelings towards Valerio or Valerio’s comprehension o f her feelings (62).
j*
+ “he felt a real pleasure in participating in two crossed conversations about fashion and the exchange
rate.”
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77
(Valerio is, after all, Adriao’s bookkeeper). In fact, his ambiguous position is
recurrently pointed out in the novel. It is spatially objectified, for example, in the
manner he situates himself at the church: standing at the door, neither entering nor
leaving, Valerio could only hear, “de mistura com o rumor da calgada, vagos
chavoes sobre o amor celeste e o amor mundano” (131).* It is also represented by
the spatial metaphor with which Valerio identifies himself:
E imaginei com desalento que havia em mim alguma coisa daquela paisagem:
uma extensa planicie que montanhas circulam. Voam-me desejos por toda a
parte, e caem, voam outros, tomam a cair, sem forga para transpor nao sei que
barreiras. Ansias que me devoram facilmente se exaurem em caminhadas curtas
por esta campina rasa que e a minha vida. (128-31) ^
In this metaphor of the flatland sourrounded by mountains, Valerio constructs a
geometrical representation of his agency within the social world. The scope and
limit of that agency is inscribed within a circumference, at whose center Valerio lies.
Each one of his investments may be represented by a line that, proceeding from that
center, never crosses the circumference that, in limiting the extension of these lines,
defines a specific point as center. In other words, in limiting the magnitude of
Valerio’s investments, which is established in relation to the amount of capital he
possesses and the amount of capital possessed by other social agents, the social
forces that the circumference represents define the point from which Valerio, by
sensing these limitations, may recognize his position within the social field. From
Valerio’s point of view, not only are his investments of a minor magnitude (limited,
on the one hand, by the capital of the competing social agents, and, on the other
*
“mixed with the murmur from the sidewalk, vague cliches about celestial and wordly love.”
1 "
“And I imagined in dismay that there was something o f that landscape in me: wide plains
sourrounded by mountains. My desires fly everywhere and fall; others fly and fall again, without the
strength to surmount I don’ t know what barriers. Anxieties that easily devour me are exhausted in
short walks along this flatland which is my life.”
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78
hand, by his own insufficient capital, therefore determining the partial nature of
his investments), but they are also multiple.
When Valerio’s investment in his relationship with Luisa comes to a halt —
for he cannot, as he notes, marry a married woman (166), nor can he fully invest in
an affair with a married woman without undergoing a social devaluation — , the
whole system of partial, multiple investments apparently breaks down. In reflecting
on the possible death of Adriao after his attempted suicide, Valerio says to himself:
“E tudo seria tao facil se ele desaparecesse! . .. Tergiversava. As minhas ideias
flutuavam, como flutuam sempre. . . . Impotencia. . . . Dangavam-me na cabega
imagens indecisas. Palavras desirmanadas, vazias, cantavam-me aos ouvidos. Eu
procurava coordena-las, dar-lhes forma aceitavel, extrair delas uma ideia. Nada”
(164).* His inability to coordinate words meaningfully mirrors his incapacity to
invest any further, in a profitable manner, in his relationship with Luisa.
Nonetheless, it is precisely Valerio’s partial, multiple, simultaneous investments that
allows him to profit from newly vacant positions that an accident, such as Adriao’s
suicide, brings about. In this sense, the pun that D. Josefa makes on Valerio’s
profession is very illustrative of the ambiguous but, contrary to what one might
think, profitable position he occupies: “Em seguida, . . . [D. Josefa] lembrou-me que
fazia um mes que viera do colegio e ainda nao me vira ali. Quando se resolvia o
senhor Diversos a Diversos a deixar de ser ingrato? / - Diversos eu, D. Josefa? Sou
apenas um, infelizmente” (75).1 Had Valerio fully invested in one social position, he
*
“Everything would be so much easier if he would disappear! . . . I tergiversated. My ideas
fluctuated, as they always do. . . . Impotence.. . . Irresolute ideas danced in my mind. Uncoupled
words, empty, were singing in my ears. I attempted to coordinate them, to give them an acceptable
form, to extract an idea from them. Nothing.”
^ “Soon after that,... [D. Josefa] reminded me that she had come from her school for a month now
and she hadn’t seen me yet. When would Mr. Miscellaneous quit being ungrateful? / - Me,
miscellaneous, D. Josefa? I’m only one, unfortunately.”
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79
would more than likely have made no significant profits. By making multiple
partial investments, on the contrary, he is finally able to fiilly invest in a position and
cohesively take up its corresponding habitus.
After Valerio becomes a partner in the firm that Luisa inherits from her
husband, he states:
Abandonei definitivamente os caetes: um negociante nao se deve meter em
coisas de arte. .. . Vou quase todos os dias a redaescrever, e claro, julgo inconveniente escrever. . . . E o u q o com atenfao e
respeito as cavaqueiras de Nazare com o Dr. Liberato. Quando tern pouco
fundo e posso nelas tomar pe, agrada-me escuta-los, rio interiormente, na ilusao
de que nao sou ignorante de todo. Depois eles afastam-se, mergulham, somem-
se, e eu fico desalentado .... Todos os dias, das oito da manha as cinco da
tarde, trabalho no escritorio, e trabalho com vigor. Temos ocupa?ao:
precisamos inspirar confian^a a freguesia e sossegar os fomecedores, mostrar-
lhes que podemos gerir o estabelecimento na falta do chefe que desapareceu.
(214-15)*
Following the Romantic precept that commerce and literature do not mix, Valerio
finally takes up the habitus of the position that not only he thought himself unfit for
(at the beginning of the novel, he states that he would never become a businessman,
given that he did not possess a feeling for it, as Adriao did [13]), but that also
opposes the position in which he invested the most: that of the writer. In this sense,
Valerio’s partial multiple investments proved to be rather profitable. For a social
agent of limited capital, partial multiple investments may turn out to be as profitable
as full investments as long as, in organizing both his phantasmatic and objective
“I have definitely abandoned my caetes: a businessman should not meddle into things o f art. . . . I go
almost everyday to the newsroom of the Semana. Not to write, o f course, for I find it inconvinient to
write.... And I hear, with attention and respect, the conversations between Nazare and Dr. Liberato.
When they are not so deep that I can stand on my feet, it pleases me to hear them, and I smile to
myself, with the illusion that I am not all that ignorant. After that they distance themselves, dive,
disappear, and I get dispirited.. . . Eveiyday, from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, I
work at the office, and I work with vigor. We are occupied: we need to inspire confidence in our
customers and to appease the suppliers, showing them that we can manage the firm in the absence of
the boss who disappeared.”
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social investments, he is capable of maintaining the capital invested within a
competitive level.
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81
Notes
1 For Carvalho’s use of the term “phantasm” and terms derived from it in her
study, see pages 33, 34, 58, 61, 84, 86, 96, 97, 105, 119, 122, 124, 125; for her use of
the terms derived from “deform” or “distort,” see pages 32, 33, 34, 35, 54.
2 Ramos’s memoirs, Infancia [Childhood] (1945), and the posthumously
published Memorias do Carcere [Prison Memoirs] (1953) were published after most
of his fictional works, with the exception of Insonia [Insomnia] (1947), a volume
comprised of short-stories, many of which had been previously published.
3 One might cite, for instance, the dichotomy that Ramos establishes in Sao
Bernardo between Paulo Honorio and Madalena and that critics reproduce in order to
differentiate, by means of an interpretation of the novel, humanism from materialism
or, at times, capitalism.
4 The critical realization that allows both the critic and his readers to
distinguish between the real and its deformation is the result of both a Bildung.
which the critic and the readers mimetically reproduce in their reading of the
characters’ Bildung. and an enlightened reason. It therefore comprises at the same
time a natural and a logical development: the accumulation of life experiences and
the articulation of discourse. In this sense, Caetes and Sao Bernardo are novels that
particularly lend themselves to the type of reading Candido performs, since the
protagonists’ final interior monologues may function as a morale for the whole
narrative anteceding them.
5 One may also, but not as likely, see the black and red checkers in Santa
Rosa’s picture not as the floor but as Luisa’s garment, which would not only be
designed with the same checkered pattern as the floor, but would also be perfectly
juxtaposed to it.
6 As indicated earlier, Brayner calls Luis da Silva’s view of the world in
Ansustia an “expressionist phantasmagoria.” Likewise, Candido states that Angustia
is characterized by a “deformagao de tonalidade expressionista” [“deformation of
expressionist undertones”] (“Bichos” 85).
7 The capital Valerio considers investing in a possible relationship with Marta
is not only cultural or linguistic, but also social. One could not imagine, following
the social logic, a character like Zacarias — a servant who peforms a few menial
tasks in Luisa’s house and who rarely appears in the novel — attempting to flirt with
Marta. In fact, it is the social illogicality of a relationship between two persons with
different amounts of capital that makes its drama or tragedy when it is depicted in
literature.
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82
8 One should also note that Joao Valerio’s imaginary scene of the
anthropophagous banquet in which bishop Sardinha was killed (97-98) appears to
echo Frei Vicente do Salvador’s description of the event (qtd. in Ribeiro and Moreira
Neto 175).
9 In his article “Iracema, por Jose de Alencar” (published in the Aguilar
edition of the complete works of Alencar as “A tradi?ao indigena na obra de
Alencar”), Machado de Assis already points out, in relation to some “minor”
indianist poets, the tendency to understand the indianist movement in Brazilian
letters as a mere utilization of a Tupi vocabulary (1055).
1 0 Uncertain about how he could describe an anthropophagic repast, Valerio
asks D. Maria Jose, the owner of the boarding house where he lives, how to prepare a
“buchada,” a traditional dish of the Northeast of Brazil, consisting of a goat’s
intestines stuffed with its ground entrails. After the explanation, Valerio says that D.
Maria Jose had just been of great service to her country (99). His jocose
commentary not only points to the value Indianism had gained within Brazilian
culture, but also indicates Valerio’s recognition of such a value. As a good investor,
Valerio knows that the higher and the more stable is the value of Indianism within
the cultural market the better are his chances of profiting from an investment in it.
1 1 As Teles himself reminds us, Ramos stated that the novel was finished by
1926, which poses a problem to any direct connection between Caetes and Oswald
de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropofagico” [“Anthropophagic Manifesto”], published
only in 1928. Indeed, a critique of Romantic Indianism, as one may read it in
Ramos’s novel, may be found in other texts prior to Modernism, such as Lima
Barreto’s novel Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma (1911; 1915) and Monteiro
Lobato’s article “Urupes” (1918).
1 2 As an index of Gonsalves Dias’s social, cultural, and linguistic capitals,
one might recall here that he became a member of the Instituto Historico e
Geografico Brasileiro in 1847 an that, in 1858, he publishes a Tupi-Portuguese
dictionary with F. A. Brockhaus, “livreiro” [publisher] of Dom Pedro II, Emperor of
Brazil. As Gonfalves Dias explains in his preface, the dictionary was compiled out
of the notes he took when writing, for the Instituto Historico, a “Memoria”
[discourse] on the intellectual and moral characteristics of the Native Brazilian
Indians (Dias, Dicionario 8). As for Alencar, it suffices to check his notes to both O
guarani and Iracema in order to perceive his cultural and linguistic capital.
1 3 See, for example, the use Dr. Castro, the district attorney, makes of
cliches (92) as well as the poem he writes for the paper A Semana (181); also see
Dr. Liberato’s constant use of medical jargon (18, 48, 67, 88, 92, 110, 163, 195, and
199).
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1 4 For a brief discussion of oratory in relation to Ramos’s writings, see
Bulhoes (123-32). Also see Luiz Costa Lima and Antonio Candido (Literatura e
sociedade 73-88) for a discussion of the role of oratory within the formation of
Brazilian intellectual production.
1 5 Another example of that double effect is when Isidoro, unable to find an
adjective to characterize Nicolau Varejao’s life, asks Dr. Liberato to say one, and he
does: “impoluta” [“undefiled”] (17).
1 6 Twice Valerio describes Barroca’s approach to him as a mixture of
superiority and protection (74 and 182), which resembles Bourdieu’s definition of
the strategy of condescension. For Bourdieu, this strategy is characterized by a
double profit: first, from the symbolic negation of the hierarchy, which, in the case of
Barroca and Valerio, might be present in the acting of protection; and second, from
an objectively undiminished hierarchy (Language 68).
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3. The Anguished Subject; Or, Investing against the Socio-Economic Logic
Mais, par une sorte de malediction, la nature essentiellement diacritique,
diferentielle, distinctive, du pouvoir symbolique fait que faeces de la
classe distinguee a l’Etre a pour contrepartie inevitable la chute de la classe
complementaire dans le Neant ou dans le moindre Etre.
Pierre Bourdieu, Ce que parler veut dire (1982)*
Nothingness or the lowest Being are two concepts that describe, quite
accurately, how Luis da Silva, the protagonist in Ramos’s Angustia, perceives
himself, especially in relation to his antagonist, Juliao Tavares. The two concepts
pervade Luis da Silva’s narrative and his perception of a social devaluation that tends
precisely to nothingness, to the lowest form of being possible. In his narrative, this
form is the phantasm that appears to Luis da Silva in his final delirium, after he
assassinates Juliao Tavares. That phantasm, as we shall see, may be Luis da Silva
himself, a social phantasm who is the lowest form of being and might gradually
disappear into nothingness. In this chapter, I shall analyze how this social phantasm
is seen from the point of view of an ambiguous social position and according to a
psychotic logic.
I take as my starting point precisely this social phantasm, showing, in the first
part of this chapter, not only that the social phantasmalization of Luis da Silva
appears within a family’s decadent trajectory, but also that Luis da Silva reconstructs
his social devaluation by means of a recognition of symbolic and objective indexes,
such as Luis da Silva’s name or his bodily hexis. Regarding the latter, I will analyze
“But, through a kind of curse, because of the essentially diacritical, differential and distinctive
nature of symbolic power, the rise of the distinguished class to Being has, as an inevitable counterpart,
the slide of the complementary class into Nothingness or the lowest Being” (translation in Language
and Symbolic Power [126]).
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85
in more detail Luis da Silva’s “shrunk-back” posture in relation to Juliao
Tavares’s dead body because in this relation we see a fixation of the social
devaluation of Luis da Silva. Throughout his narrative, Luis da Silva neurotically
reconstructs his social devaluation, although he interpolates it with instances of
valorization. The establishment of a stable social value might have occurred had
Marina, Luis da Silva’s would-be bride, had the habitus of a low-capital agent and
married Luis da Silva. For, then, he would have been able to fully embrace the logic
and the position that are the most easily accessible to him: the logic of the penny jar
and the position of a low-capital agent. But Marina refuses to marry him, and Luis
da Silva’s ambiguous social position appears then to be fixed. He can neither fully
reject nor fully embrace any of the logics inscribed in the social positions that we
find in his topography of the social world.
To understand Luis da Silva’s envisioning of a social phantasmalization, it is
thus necessary to pursue these logics and their corresponding social positions, which
I do in the second part of this chapter. I begin with the one position that Luis da
Silva, unlike Juliao Tavares, cannot occupy, that of the “modern” high-capital agent
and the logic of “money begets money,” for they serve as the backdrop against which
all the other ones stand. After I reconstruct this backdrop, I move to the opposing
positions and logics. First, I examine that of the “old” high-capital agent and the
logic of personalism, which Luis da Silva’s grandfather, a slave and land owner,
clearly embodies. Although Luis da Silva has a great deal of phantasmatic
investment in that position and logic, they are, personally and historically, not open
to him. I thus analyze, in continuation, the positions and logics that were actually
open to Luis da Silva: the position of cultural producer, with the logic of
disinterestedness, and the position of the leftist intellectual, with the logic of
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86
revolution. In his partial rejection of all of these positions and logics, Luis da
Silva occupies an ambiguous social position, but one from where he finds a logic that
might finally counterpose, even if phantasmatically, his social devaluation. I thus
end the chapter by retracing, in the last part, the psychotic logic through which Luis
da Silva claims for himself an intrinsic value that opposes social phantasmalization.
3.1. Decadence and Devaluation: Seeing Social Phantasms
In Ramos’s third novel, the narrative begins a month after Luis da Silva, the
protagonist and narrator, seems to have recovered from the nervous breakdown that
took him to bed, following the assassination of Juliao Tavares. In recounting his
story, Luis da Silva gradually unfolds to the reader not only the triangular
relationship between himself, Marina, his would-be bride, and Juliao Tavares, a
“bacharel” who befriended Luis da Silva and would later maintain a love relationship
with Marina, but also the process of derangement that would lead to the crime. In
one of the monologues in which Luis da Silva represents his state of mind and his
actions after the assassination, he recalls the time when he worked as a proofreader
for a local newspaper . “Depois de meia-noite as letras miudas dan?avam na prova
molhada, a saleta da revisao enchia-se de fantasmas, a gente lia cochilando,
emendava cochilando. Um galego dava ordens aos berros. Nas mesinhas estreitas,
forradas com papel de impressao, as vozes esmoreciam, as canetas sujas, nojentas,
calavam-se. Vida porca, safada” (213).* In this only instance in which Luis da Silva
uses the term “phantasm” (“phantom,” in Kaplan’s translation), the word acquires,
within its context, an ambiguous meaning. Since the first sentence is formed by
*
“After midnight the tiny letters danced on the wet proof-sheets, the copy-room filled with phantoms,
the people read dozing, correcting, dozing. A gallegan bellowed orders. At the small narrow tables,
lined with printed papers, the voices died away, the dirty repulsive fountain pens grew still. A swine’ s
life, a nasty life” (240).
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juxtaposed clauses that lack any connecting device, the signification of
“phantasm” may be associated with either the preceding or the subsequent clauses.
In the first case, the phantasms are illusory beings or things that the subject
constructs due to his physical weariness, much like the ones that appear in Caetes. In
the second case, however, the subject and his workmates become phantasms, in part,
because of their physical condition, but also because of the treatment they receive
from their superior. For to shout orders objectifies the symbolic distance between
the dominated and the dominant social positions; it is an aggressive act whose degree
of acceptability depends on the extent of that very same distance.1 As the scene
indicates, the image of the phantasm within Luis da Silva’s narrative points to a
symbolic and objective devaluation of social agents, a devaluation that, in Luis da
Silva’s narrative, parallels his family’s decadence.
In “Graciliano Ramos e o romance tragico,” Sonia Brayner notes how Luis da
Silva embodies the very image of the dissolution of a once affluent family of
landowners who belonged to the landed oligarchy of the Northeast of Brazil. The
erasure of weighty surnames inscribes in Luis da Silva’s name a sign of the familial
dissociation: his grandfather had been named Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante
e Silva; his father, Camilo Pereira da Silva, whereas he was a mere “Luis da Silva”
(“Graciliano Ramos” 209).2 Brayner’s observation expands, to a certain extent,
Candido’s use of a quote from Ramos’s novel in order to point out the decadence of
both Luis da Silva’s grandfather and father, “‘reduzido [emphasis mine] a Camilo
Pereira da Silva’” (“Ficpao” 38),* in that it underscores the loss of the most
prestigious surnames (Aquino Cavalcante) as the basis for the reduction with which
Luis da Silva characterizes his father. In this sense, the reduction of the father’s
*
“reduced [emphasis mine] to Camilo Pereira da Silva” (6).
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name may lead to a nominal value of the proper noun, to a value derived from the
personal capital social agents may accumulate, rather than the inherited symbolic
capital that is inscribed in socially recognized family names.
Within the context of Luis da Silva’s portrayal of his father, the loss of
symbolic capital parallels the loss of economic capital objectified in the dilapidation
of the family’s assets: the cattle is reduced in number to ten or twelve, all scrawny
and infested with parasites; termites were eating up parts of the corral and the house;
an oxcart rotted away (11/6). In relation to this setting of devalued property (on both
the symbolic and the objective levels), each family member carries out certain
sociologically pertinent practices: the grandmother cursed at imaginary slaves (11/6),
whereas the grandfather, now a drunkard, treated one of his former slaves as if he
were still part of his property, yelling at him, ‘“Negro, tu nao respeitas teu senhor
nao, negro!”’ (11-12);* the father “ficava dias inteiros manzanzando numa rede
armada nos esteios do copiar, cortando palha de milho para cigarros, lendo o Carlos
Magno. sonhando com a vitoria do partido que padre Inacio chefiava” (11);^ and
Luis da Silva, the grandson, dragged a cowbell, playing the bull as if he were the son
of a cowherd (11/6). These practices may function as generationally different
dispositions appropriate to the social position of the decadent rural oligarchy, which
is occupied at the same time by the former slave and landowners who act as if they
still possessed the old capital that enabled them to effectively wield power, their son,
the unproductive agent who merely expends the family’s accumulated capital, and
the penniless grandson, who begins to take up attributes of the lower classes.
*
“No. Negro, you do not respect your master! (7).
t
whiled away the time idly in a hammock hooked to some timbers on the porch, cutting comhusks
for cigarettes, reading of Charlemagne, or dreaming of the triumph of the party led by Father Ignacio”
(6).
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The manner in which Luis da Silva carries out a common social practice —
playing -- not only betrays a discrepancy with the social position of landowner that
he might have inherited from his grandparents, but it also points to a decline in social
standing. For the animalization that he embodies in his play, and which is implied in
Camilo Pereira da Silva’s perception of his son as a mule (13/8), is an objectified
form of the proximity to the “natural,” which partially defines the lower classes in
relation to the symbolic distance with which dominant classes mark their mediated
relation to the “natural.” Although animalization is mostly applied to Luis da Silva,
it functions as a general characteristic of the family’s decadent social position,
apparent during the rainy season, when the father’s filthy hammock “fedia a bode”
(“stank like a goat-pen” [15/10]) and when the farm’s animals sought shelter in the
porch, leaving the floor all covered with excrement (15/10).
In the narrative segment in which Luis da Silva recalls for the first time the
decadent environment in which he spent his childhood, his thought process follows
the movement of the streetcar he had taken. “Quando o carro para,” he says, “essas
sombras antigas desaparecem de supetao” (12).* However, when the car is running,
“as recorda?oes da [sua] infancia precipitam-se. E a decadencia de Trajano Pereira
de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva precipita-se tambem” (12).^ The precipitation of the
grandfather’s decadence into a state of senility is, given the tragic chain that binds
one generation to the next, an instance of the family decandence towards an
unproductive, decapitalized social position, which is ultimately realized with the
father’s death:
*
“When the streetcar stops,” he says, “these old shadows disappear abruptly” (7).
' “[his] childhood memories quicken. And Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva’s senility is
also precipitated” (7).
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No dia seguinte os credores passaram os gadanhos no que acharam. Tipos
desconhecidos entravam na loja, mediam pegas de pano. Chegavam de chapeu
na cabega, cigarro no bico, invadiam os quartos, praguejavam. . . . E os homens
batiam os pes com forga, levavam as mercadorias, levavam os moveis, nem me
olhavam, nem olhavam Quiteria, que se encolhia gemendo ‘Misericordia!,’
como quando o trovao rolava no ceu e os bichos iam abrigar-se no copiar da
fazenda. (19)*
With the physical absence of the father and the symbolic absence of the name whose
credit still compensated for the family’s increasingly meager economic capital, the
creditors cannot but consummate the dilapidation of that capital. In other words,
given the almost negative credit of the family’s name and hence the lack of
credibility of those carrying that name, the creditors cannot but take their tangible
property as the family’s only remaining assets. They must thus evaluate the family’s
belongings, searching for the ones that might be taken as commodities and
attempting to find an economic equivalence between their value and the amount of
money owed, and hence the measuring up of fabrics. Creditors run otherwise the
risk of suffering an economic loss.
In this scene in which the family’s debts are liquidated, the decrease in the
family’s capital is objectified in the creditors’ disregard for Luis da Silva, the boy,
who is thus leveled with Quiteria, the former slave who still lived with the family.
Both are invisible to the creditors’ eyes; both display the same posture. Indeed, Luis
da Silva constantly uses terms derived from the verb “encolher” (“to shrink”) to
qualify his carriage in different situations, ranging from his childhood to his adult
life: in his father’s wake (17/13); at the cafe where he watched the cliques of doctors,
*
“The next day creditors removed whatever they could find. Strangers entered the house and
measured pieces of cloth. They arrived wearing hats, with cigars in their mouths, and invaded the
rooms, cursing.
. . . And the men stamped their feet violently, carried away the merchandise, carried away the
furniture, without glancing at me, without glancing at Quiteria, who shrank back, moaning ‘Mercy! ’
as when thunder rolled over the sky and the animals sought shelter on the veranda of the plantation
house” (15-16).
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lawyers, writers, etc. (24/20; 25/21); in a “bodega” (“tavern”), where he meets a
group of bums (114/125); negatively, in a phantasmatic scene in which he meets the
governor and the state secretary in the streets (118/130); on the streetcar, following
Juliao Tavares (179/200; 182/203); after the assassination, when he twice touches
Juliao Tavares’s dead body (193/216; 198/222); and when, already back home from
the crime scene, he imagines that the knocks on the door he hears come from the
chief of police (213/240). Within Luis da Silva’s narrative, the “shrunk-back”
posture is part of the bodily hexis through which an often objectified symbolic
devaluation is recognized and therefore repeated within the set of acquired uses of
the body constituting that hexis: Luis da Silva frequently silences or speaks low in
face of high-capital social agents (49/49; 190/212), lowers his head (76-77/80-81;
118-19/130-31), and bends his back (118/130). Since a bodily hexis is a physical
form of one’s practical sense of the social topography, the objectification of the
decrease in the family’s capital that we may see in the creditors’ bearing and in their
appropriation of the physical space also constitutes an objectified form of the
symbolic devaluation of the social agent who not only inherits the decreased capital,
but also embodies a corresponding hexis.5
In this sense, the two instances in which Luis da Silva shrinks back after
having touched Juliao Tavares’s dead body are more complex than the others. For
the “shrunk-back” posture, as a practical recognition of the often objectified
symbolic devaluation of the social agent and of his scant symbolic and objective
power, is somewhat displaced from the situations in which the devaluation of Luis da
Silva is (or would be) objectified in order to be associated with the dead body itself.6
Both episodes begin with phantasmatic constructs in which Luis da Silva not only
faces social antagonists, as in all the other situations in which he shrinks back, but
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92
also elaborates on the probable effects of his devalued act. However, he only
assumes the “shrunk-back” posture after touching Juliao Tavares’s dead body or in
order to avoid touching it again. This displacement from the objectified symbolic
devaluation to the dead body does not constitute a dismissal of the former in favor of
the latter, but rather a fixation of it. For such a dismissal would only have been
possible had Luis da Silva been able to fully reverse the dominated and dominant
social positions that he and Juliao Tavares occupy, respectively, within the social
field, which he is only able to perform phantasmatically.
In the act of strangling Juliao Tavares with a rope, Luis da Silva had “um
deslumbramento” [“an insight”]:
O homenzinho da repartifao e do jomal nao era eu. Esta convicgao afastou
qualquer receio de perigo. Uma alegria enorme encheu-me. Pessoas que
aparecessem ali seriam figurinhas insignificantes, todos os moradores da cidade
eram figurinhas insignificantes. Tinham-me enganado. Em trinta e cinco anos
haviam-me convencido de que so me podia mexer pela vontade dos outros. Os
mergulhos que meu pai me dava no po?o da Pedra, a palmatoria de mestre
Antonio Justino, os berros do sargento, a grosseria do chefe da revisao, a
impertinencia macia do diretor, tudo virou fumaga. (191) *
Opposed to this phantasmatic self-valorization, which Luis da Silva performs by
means of a cleavage of the self into a psychological subject and a social agent, is the
devaluation of Juliao Tavares:
Tanta empafia, tanta lorota, tanto adjetivo besta em discurso — e estava ali,
amunhecando, vencido pelo proprio peso, esmorecendo, escorregando para o
chao coberto de folhas secas, amortalhado na neblina. Ao ser alcanfado pela
corda, tivera um arranco de bicho brabo. Aquietava-se, inclinava-se para a
*
“The small puny man in the department and on the paper was not me. This conviction removed
some fear of danger. A vast happiness filled me. The persons who might appear there would be
insignificant figures, all the dwellers of the city were insignificant puppets. They had deceived me.
For thirty-five years they had convinced me that I could not stir an inch except by the will of others.
The duckings my father had given me in the Pedra pool, the blows Mestre Antonio had given me with
a ruler, the howl of the sergeant, the grossness of the chief examiner, the soft insolence of the
manager, all vanished into thin air” (214).
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frente, os joelhos dobravam-se, o corpo amolecia. . .. Quando bebia demais,
seu Ivo tinha aquele jeito de arriar, nao havia conversa que o levantasse. (191-
92)*
The association that Luis da Silva establishes between the posture of seu Ivo, a
vagrant who often visited him, and that of the dying Juliao Tavares points to a
similitude between Tavares’s carriage, when dying, and the postures that low-capital
agents usually take up, either living or dead. For in dead bodies social agents also
objectify the social distribution of capital.
Thus, immediately after the assassination, Luis da Silva attempts to imagine
what Juliao Tavares’s dead face looks like, and the images of Cirilo de Engracia - a
“cangaceiro” who was tied to a tree and killed — and seu Evaristo — an old man who,
unable to work for a living, hangs himself -- come to mind (194/217).7 In both cases,
the image of the dead body functions as a metaphor for and an objectification of a
discrepancy in the amount of capital dominant and dominated social agents possess,
insofar as the power that the former may wield over the latter is inscribed in that
image. Such power is derived precisely from that discrepancy of capital and
objectified in the possible punishments to which the body is subjected, such as tying
or hanging. The same metaphorical use and objectification applies to the other two
images of dead bodies that are inserted in the narrative , that of the boy who
deflowers the daughter of a “senhor de engenho” (108/118; 110/120-21) and, most
importantly, that of Luis da Silva’s father. According to Luis da Silva, when he was
first faced with his father’s dead body, he did not feel like crying. “Estava
espantado,” he says, “imaginando a vida que ia suportar, sozinho neste mundo”
*
“So much knavery, so much babbling, so many stupid adjectives in speeches — and there he was
floundering, overcome by his own weight, dying, sliding over the ground covered with dry leaves,
shrouded in mist. When the cord had first reached him he had jerked away like a wild beast. Then he
grew quiet, slumped forward, his knees buckled under him, his body relaxed.. . . When he drank too
much, Seu Ivo had the same habit of slumping down, and there was no talk that could raise him”
(214-15).
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(17).* His uncertainty regarding his future as an orphan is repeated two more
times within the episode of his father’s death, up to the scene in which Luis da
Silva’s lack of capital, which he practically recognizes in his sense of abandonment,
is objectified in the creditors’ taking away the family’s belongings.
Although the phantasmatic self-valorization and the concomitant devaluation
of Luis da Silva’s social antagonist might momentarily reverse (at least
phantasmatically) the direction of the flow of capital that is at the same time
inscribed in the images of the dead bodies and objectified in the situations in which
Luis da Silva shrinks back, therefore phantasmatically inverting the social positions
the protagonist and the antagonist occupy and freeing Luis da Silva from fear and a
sense of endangerment, it is counterposed by Luis da Silva’s practical knowledge of
the social structure. In distancing himself from the specularity that constitutes his
relationship with Juliao Tavares and which culminates with the assassination of the
double, Luis da Silva wonders, “Se viesse alguem?” (193)J This question not only
reinserts in his discourse a figure of alterity, but, in so doing, also leads Luis da Silva
to resituate his act within the evaluative scale that he only temporarily inverts.
After posing that question, Luis da Silva not only constructs the phantasmatic
situations in which his act is clearly devalued (see note 6), but also loses the
“courage” to run away and reassumes the point of view through which the sees
himself as “velho e impotente” [“old and impotent”] (193/217). His re-assumption is
once again objectified in his physical condition, for he is unable to make his teeth
stop chattering. In fact, it is after some people do pass by Juliao Tavares’s body,
without perceiving he is dead, that Luis da Silva starts regaining a sense of the
danger involved in the situation, which he explicitly articulates after shrinking back
*
“I was frightened,” he says, “imagining what my life would be like alone in the world” (13).
f “Suppose someone should come?” (216).
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for the second time in his attempt to avoid touching the dead body again. One
might thus say that touching the dead body functions as a call to both objective
reality — just as the appearance of Miranda interrupts one of Joao Valerio’s fantasies
in Caetes. making him “recuar” (“shrink back” [205]) — and to the possible effects of
his devalued act.
On the one hand, Tavares’s friends’ judgment, the news coverage, Pimentel’s
article, the persecution, all could function, had they been realized, as objective forms
of a recognition of Juliao Tavares’s capital, that is, as objective forms of his
symbolic capital. For, even though he assassinates Juliao Tavares, Luis da Silva is
not able to decrease the capital Tavares had accumulated, and which is symbolically
inscribed in his name. In fact, in constructing a phantasmatic scene in which he sees
the repercussions of Juliao Tavares’s death (the articles published in the paper and
the burial ceremony [194-95/218-19]), Luis da Silva constructs a practical
knowledge of that inability as well as of the solidity of Tavares’s symbolic capital,
which is partly derived from the fact that, as a form of recognition, symbolic capital
is the result of a group investment.
On the other hand, the phantasmatic scenes in which Luis da Silva is caught,
interrogated, and judged (202-203/226-28), or in which, after a police detective
knocks at his door, he confesses the crime and is arrested (210-11/236-37), also
afford him a practical knowledge of his current devaluation, which is a displaced
form of the devaluation of his act. Since it constitutes a manner of reifying the
bodies of social agents, the imprisonment to which Luis da Silva might have been
subjected not only functions as an objectification of his accentuated devaluation, but
it also approximates him to those social agents whose dead bodies he keeps recalling
in his narrative. For the prisoner’s body, given the coercion encroached upon it by
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means of the uses other social agents may make of it, is as much reified as those of
Cirilo de Engracia, seu Ribeiro, or the boy who deflowered the daughter of the
“senhor de engenho.” It is because Juliao Tavares’s dead body functions as a sign of
Luis da Silva’s socially devalued act that one may say that touching the dead body
fixates the objectified forms of the symbolic devaluation, which Luis da Silva
neurotically constructs.8
His narrative is, indeed, insistently punctuated with instances of self
devaluation. he perceives himself as a “pobre-diabo” (8), “um rato” (8), “um
diminuto cidadao” (22), “[u]ma criaturinha insignificante, um percevejo social,
acanhado, encolhido para nao ser empurrado” (25), “um sertanejo, um bruto, um
selvagem” (37), “incompleto” (117), “ffaco e desarmado” (117), “um boneco
desengonfado, uma criatura mordida pelas pulgas” (118), “miudo e perturbado”
(188), “um bicho inferior” (188), “um cachorro, um ninguem” (190), “um trouxa,
infeliz, amarrado” (190), “um porco” (212), “figurinha insignificante” (227), etc.*
Such an obsessive self-devaluation is counterposed by instances of valorization,
constituting a sort of bipolar movement of appreciation and depreciation, in which
the latter predominates. He thus imagines, at the moment he is strangling Juliao
Tavares, that he is not the “homenzinho da repartifao e do jornal” (191; emphasis
mine),1 as we have seen; he fantasizes, while he is still engaged to Marina, that he
would win the lottery and not only give her all the luxurious goods she dreamed of,
but also lead the life of a high-capital bourgeois, like that of the Tavares’s (72);9 he
*
He perceives himself as a “poor devil” (2), “a rat” (2), “a puny citizen” (translation mine; Kaplan
translates it as “any avarage citizen” [18]), “[a]n insignificant creature, a social bug, shrinking back
feafully to avoid being squashed” (21), “a brute, a savage from the backlands” (36), “incomplete”
(129), “weak and disarmed” (129), “a disjointed doll,. . . a creature bitten by fleas” (130), “tiny and
disturbed” (211), “an inferior beast” (211), “a dog, a nobody” (213), “an unhappy, bound bundle”
(213), “a hog” (238), “a tiny puppet” (256), etc.
1 “the small puny man in the department and on the paper was not me” (214; emphasis mine).
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creates a phantasmatic scene in which he is married to a typist he met and in
which he would write a book of short stories and discuss literature with Moises, the
Marxist friend, and Pimentel, while Marina and Juliao Tavares, the “corja”
[“rabble”], would be having some drinks in the adjoining room (97/105); and, in the
phantasmatic scene of his imprisonment, he imagines that he would write a great
book in prison:
Amarelo, papudo, faria um grande livro, que seria traduzido e circularia em
muitos paises. Escreve-lo-ia a lapis, em papel de embrulho, nas margens de
jornais velhos. O carcereiro me pediria umas explicagoes. Eu responderia:
Isto e assim e assado.’ Teria consideragao, deixar-me-iam escrever o livro.
Dormiria numa rede e viveria afastado dos outros presos. (211)
Although all of these fantasies, like those of Joao Valerio, may produce a
phantasmatic correction of value by means of a self-valorization, they are dissociated
from the production of symbolic capital, given that Luis da Silva is not able to gain
the recognition necessary for such a production, therefore making no profit out of his
objective social investments.
In his relationship with Marina, for example, he attempts to make a social
investment in marriage, an investment proportional to both his accumulated capital
and his social position. “O que receava,” he states, “era transformar as nossas
relagoes, miudas, num acontecimento social importante” (67).* Nonetheless, Marina
insists on turning their marriage into a disproportionate investment. With the five
hundred mil-reis that Luis da Silva gives her, she buys “quase nada: calgas de seda,
*
“Yellow and turgid, I would write a great book, the book would be translated and circulate in many
countries. I would write it with pencil on wrapping paper and the margins of old newspapers. The
warden would demand an explanation. I would reply: ‘It’s about so-and-so.’ I would have
consideration, they would let me write the book. I would sleep in a hammock and live apart from
other prisoners” (237).
* “What I feared,” he states, “was to transform our private relations into an important social event”
(71).
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camisas de seda e outras ninharias” (72).* Although Luis da Silva knows that such
an expenditure is not proportionate to his capital, he gives in to Marina: “Sangrei
mais quinhentos mil-reis. Depois sangrei duzentos, adquiriu moveis em leilao e
vesti-me de novo, porque as minhas camisas estavam esfiapadas e o paleto se cobria
de nodoas. . . . Ofereci a seu Ivo os meus sapatos cambaios e reformei os pes. O
dinheiro sumia-se, essas alteragoes chupavam-me as reservas acumuladas com
paciencia” (74; emphasis mine).1 ^ This quick dilapidation of his capital, which
repeats the one in which the creditors take away the family’s remaining possessions,
leads him to withdraw all his money from the bank in order to buy Marina a
keepsake, a wrist watch and a ring, thus leaving the jeweler’s “com vinte mil-reis na
carteira, algumas pratas e niqueis. Mais nada. . . . Vinte mil-reis para cafe e
cigarros” (74)* Without any more capital, Luis da Silva resorts to borrowing money
from Moises’s uncle in order to buy the last goods necessary for married life. He
says:
Assim, acabei de encalacrar-me. Marina recebeu os panos friamente,
insensivel ao sacrificio que eu fazia, aquela ingrata. Se eu nao tivesse cataratas
no entendimento, teria percebido logo que ela estava com a cabeqa virada.
Virada para um sujeito que podia pagar-lhe camisas de seda, meias de seda.
Que valiam os tecidos grosseiros comprados ao velho Abraao, ou Salomao, o
tio de Moises? Nem olhou os pobres trapos, que ficaram em cima de uma
cadeira, esquecidos. (85)§
*
“almost nothing: some silk stockings, a few silk blouses, and other trifles” (77).
t
“I drew out another five hundred milreis. Then I extracted two hundred more, acquired some
tumiture at an auction, and bought new clothes, because my shirts were in rags and my vest was
covered with stains.. . . I offered seu Ivo my dilapidated shoes and improved my feet. The money
disappeared; these alterations were draining the savings I had accumulated so patiently” (78).
“with twenty milreis in my wallet, some silver, and a few nickeis [sic]. Nothing else... . Twenty
milreis for coffee and cigarettes” (79).
® “Thus I ended by falling into this pickle. Marina, that ingrate, received the clothes coldly, insensible
to the enormous sacrifice I had made. If I had not been so thick-skulled I would have perceived
immediately that her head was already turned. Turned by some fellow who could buy her silk
chemises and hosiery. What good were the coarse fabrics purchased from old Abrahao or Salomao,
Moyses’s uncle? She did not even look at the miserable rags. They lay forgotten on a chair” (91).
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In that same afternoon in which Luis da Silva hands her the fabrics (“clothes” in
Kaplan’s translation), a “cena muda” [“mute scene”] takes place, one in which
Marina does not see Luis da Silva; “era como se estivesse so. . . . O rosto imovel,
como se [ele] nao estivesse ali” (85).* In disregarding Luis da Silva, Marina not only
equates him with the valueless goods he buys her, but also places him in the same
relational position in which he found himself, as a boy, before the creditors: Luis da
Silva is once again invisible.
On the one hand, Marina clearly shows to Luis da Silva that he lacks the
capital necessary to engage in a relationship with her. She hence valorizes herself at
the same time that she devalues him.1 0 Luis da Silva, on the other hand, in
attempting to make a proportionate objective social investment in a marriage with
Marina, also strives to embrace the economic logic structuring low-capital social
positions. I shall call that the logic of the penny jar, for it postulates that the
accumulation of small sums may eventually amount to a large economic capital.
Through this logic, low-capital social agents can make sense of their “humble”
economic exchanges, as when Luis da Silva, in view of Marina’s disproportionate
expenditure, tells her: “Estou na pindaiba, ouviu? E necessario a gente escolher
mercadoria barata” (84).^ In devaluing Luis da Silva and in rejecting both the social
position of low-capital agents and the logic of the penny jar, Marina practically calls
into question the very raison d’etre of Luis da Silva’s attempted investment. When
that investment fails, Luis da Silva’s ambiguous social position becomes fixed, for
he can neither fully reject nor fully occupy the social positions that are, or should
have been, open to him, together with their corresponding logics: the “old” high-
*
“it was as though she were alone.. .. Her face stony, as though I did not exist” (92).
“I haven’t got a cent left, do you hear? We must buy cheap merchandise” (90).
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capital agent (and the logic of personalism), the cultural producer (and the logic
of disinterestedness), and the leftist intellectual (and the logic of revolution).1 1
3.2. Four Social Positions, Four Logics
Within Luis da Silva’s narrative, the ambiguity of his social position is
rhetorically constructed by means of a dualistic logic. Through this dualism, Luis da
Silva opposes different dominated logics to the logic structuring the dominant social
position he cannot occupy, unlike Juliao Tavares, who comes from a “[f]amilia rica.
Tavares & Cia., negociantes de secos e molhados, donos de predios, membros
influentes da AssociaTavares symbolizes the inexorability of the social structure (Gonsalves 55); he is a
symbol for the dominant class (Malard 22) and therefore embodies “o explorador, o
representante acabado de sua classe” (Malard 23 ) r and, as a consequence, all the
oppression Luis da Silva suffered throughout his life (Brayner, “Graciliano Ramos”
211). He embodies, in short, that which Luis da Silva hates, as Candido notes
(“Ficfao” 39), or, more specifically, that which he hates in the modern dominant
class. In effect, if one may perceive Juliao Tavares, through Luis da Silva’s eyes, as
a symbol of the class to which he belongs, it is precisely because he embodies it, that
is, because he is able to produce objective symbols of that belonging, which Luis da
Silva is keen on observing and reproducing.
Tavares is thus described as a “sujeito gordo, vermelho, risonho, patriota,
falador e escrevedor” (43), a “literato e bacharel” (44) who “[vjestia casaca,
ffeqiientava os bailes da Associagao Comercial e era amavel em demasia” (48) and
*
“rich family. Tavares & Co., wholesale grocers, owners of numerous apartment buildings and
influential members of the Chamber of Commerce” (43).
+ “the exploiter, the finest representative of his class.”
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has “dentes miudos, afiados” that makes him resemble a “rato, como o pai;” he
is, moreover, “[rjeacionario e catolico” (44). Like Evaristo Barroca, in Caetes, the
language Juliao Tavares uses is “arrevesada, muitos adjetivos, pensamento nenhum”
(43), which leads Luis da Silva to think that everything in him was “postigo, tudo dos
outros” (50). In Luis da Silva’s eyes, Tavares’s highly stylized, euphemized
language is not only devoid of any signification or significance, but it is also
analogous to his flabby bodily structure. Nevertheless, this language predominates
over the direct, coarse language Luis da Silva and his friends (Moises and Pimentel)
use, for they all become silent before Tavares.
In taking Juliao Tavares’s physique as a sign of his social position and of the
uselessness or the idleness with which one may characterize it, Luis da Silva
reproduces Tavares’s symbolization of his social position, and not only because he is
able to recognize it in the signs Tavares produces in that symbolization. For Luis da
Silva too produces new signs of this social position and therefore engages, even if
negatively, in the process of production of capital that he criticizes in Tavares and
which is inscribed in the linguistic competence of the “bacharel,” as Luis da Silva
himself notes.1 2 He states:
A minha linguagem e baixa, acanalhada. As vezes sapeco palavroes obscenos.
Nao os adoto escrevendo por falta de habito e porque os jornais nao os
publicariam, mas e a minha maneira ordinaria de falar quando nao estou na
presenga dos chefes. Com Moises da-se coisa semelhante. . . . As nossas
conversas sao naturais, nao temos papas na lingua.. . . Juliao Tavares veio
tomar impossiveis expansoes assim. Dizia, referindo-se a um poeta morto:
- Era um grande espirito, um nobre espirito. Quanta emogao! Alem disso
conhecimento perfeito da lingua. Artista privilegiado.
Filho de uma puta. (49)*
*
“My language is coarse, simple. Sometimes I use obscene words. From lack of habit, and because
the journals would not publish them, I do not adopt them in writing, but that is my ordinary way of
speaking when I am not in the presence of my chiefs. The same thing is true of Moyses. . .. Our
conversations are natural, we have no mush in our mouths.. .. Juliao Tavares’s coming made this
expansiveness impossible. Referring to a dead poet, he said:
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When Luis da Silva notices that Juliao Tavares made impossible their
expansiveness, the natural, direct, and coarse language that both Luis da Silva and
Moises use, he achieves a specific practical recognition. Before dominant speakers
who posses the linguistic capital to employ the most valued types of speech and
embody the dominant social position, dominated speakers cannot use the dominated
linguistic forms without incurring in symbolic devaluation, unless, of course, the
situation is favorable to the assertion of a counter-legitimacy.1 3 Hence, Luis da Silva
rejects the rhetorical strategies characteristic of the dominant linguistic forms, as
when he states that Juliao Tavares sang praises only to be flattered in return (45/44).
But, above all, Luis da Silva repudiates Juliao Tavares’s inappropriate use of
dominant linguistic forms in a dominated social space. In the privacy of their homes,
low-capital agents should find the proper space for natural, direct, coarse language,
allowing them to invest in a misrecognized sense of the suspension of the domination
of markets. In using the inappropriate language, however, Juliao Tavares disrupts
the social homology between space and language, as Luis da Silva observes:
Se aquele patife tivesse chegado aqui naturalmente, eu nao me zangaria. Se me
tivesse encomendado e pago um artigo de elogio a firma Tavares & Cia., eu
teria escrito o artigo. . . . Teria escrito o artigo e recebido o dinheiro. O que
nao achava certo era ouvir Juliao Tavares todos os dias afirmar, em linguagem
pulha, que o Brasil e um mundo, os poetas alagoanos uns poetas enormes e
Tavares pai, chefe da firma Tavares & Cia., um talento notavel, porque juntou
dinheiro. Essas coisas a gente diz no jomal, e nenhuma pessoa medianamente
sensata liga importancia a elas. Mas na sala de jantar, fiimando, de perna
tran?ada, e falta de vergonha. Francamente, e falta de vergonha. (50) *
‘He was a great soul, a noble spirit. What emotion! What mastery of the language! A privileged
artist.'
Son of a bitch” (49-50).
*
“If he had come to me frankly, offering to pay for an article praising the firm Tavares & Co., I
would have written the article.. . . I would have written the article and received the money. But to
hear Juliao Tavares jovially assert every day that Brazil is a world, Alagoan poets are enormous poets,
and Papa Tavares of Tavares & Co. a notable talent because he amassed money, was something I
could not bear. People say things in the papers, and no sensible person pays the slightest attention to
them. But to say it in the parlour, smoking, his legs tracing a pattern, was disgusting. Positively
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Once this over-extended domination, crossing borders that define social spaces,
is objectified in the loss of Marina, Luis da Silva displaces his symptomatic irritation
from Juliao Tavares’s linguistic products and his high-capital mode of production,
which he had spumed from the very beginning, to the symbolic social recognition
that is already implicit in them. For Luis da Silva, the most irritating aspect of the
process of accumulation of capital in which Juliao Tavares engages is not his own
investments in it, but the recognition they receive:
A mao curta de unhas cor-de-rosa [Tavares’s] fazia acenos para baixo.
Transeuntes sorriam ao dono da mao curta de unhas brunidas. Eu notava com
raiva aqueles sorrisos. Porque tanta subserviencia nas caras abertas? Juliao
Tavares, patriota e orador, nao prestava para nada. Nenhum favor esperavam
dele. Mas sorriam por habito. Eu tambem havia sorrido, amolado. . . . Falava
alto, atirava cumprimentos aos conhecidos e era amavel em excesso, mas a
amabilidade traduzia-se em palavras vas. O que me aborrecia era saber que
essas palavras eram aceitas: tinham tido significa?ao antigamente e
continuavam a circular. (180)
Without a symbolic recognition, as Luis da Silva notes, Tavares’s linguistic products
cannot circulate, and he cannot, as a consequence, accumulate symbolic capital, for
the “words” he uses are, in Luis da Silva’s eyes, “vain.” They are, in other words,
linguistic signs devoid of signification, empty signs.1 4
In his irritation with the symbolic recognition that social agents confer upon
Juliao Tavares’s “vain” linguistic products, Luis da Silva thus puts into play a
repudiation of capital itself and of its modus operandi. For he can neither accept that
“the exchange relation of commodities is characterized precisely by its abstraction
shameful” (50-51).
* _
“[Juliao Tavares’s] short hand with the rose-coloured nails hung limply down. The passers-by
smiled at the owner of the short hand with polished nails. I noted those smiles with rage. Why so
much subservience in those frank faces? Juliao Tavares, patriot and orator, paid no attention to
anyone. They expected no favour from him. But they smiled from habit. I too had smiled before,
horribly vexed. . . . He spoke loudly, tossing greetings to acquaintances, and was extremely amiable,
but his friendship was translated into vain words. What disgusted me was knowing that these words
were accepted: that they formerly had meaning and continued to circulate” (200-201).
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from their use-values” nor that “exchange-value cannot be anything other than
the mode of expression, the ‘form of appearance,’ of a content distinguishable from
it” (Marx, Capital 127). Since he cannot accept this distinction between the form of
appearance and the content, Luis da Silva emotionally invests against one of the
practices that is brought about with the exchange of commodities and which most
clearly evinces the distinction between exchange-value and use-value: to display; to
exhibit; to expose.
The first instance of an aggressive emotional investment against the display
of commodities occurs right after he sees Marina and Juliao Tavares flirting.
Walking in the streets aimlessly, Luis da Silva stops in front of shop windows,
feeling “a tentagao de destruir os objetos expostos” (78).* In his eyes, “as mulheres
que ali estavam em pasmaceira, admirando aquelas porcarias, mereciam chicote”
(78);1 he goes to the newspaper office, reads a few telegrams, which were “noticias
sem importancia, mas julg[a] perceber nelas graves sintomas de decomposigao
social” (78).1 Within Luis da Silva’s narrative, his anger towards the female
shoppers is a form of displaced investment, in that the scene in which Marina flirts
with Juliao Tavares is analogous to the one in which the female shoppers stand in
front of the window. They all look at the products that the market currently offers
them. In fact, Luis da Silva characterizes Marina as “frivola, incapaz de agarrar uma
ideia”§ and notes, annoyed, what he calls her “inclinagoes imbecis ou safadas” (39).**
These proclivities constitute her appreciation of a symbolized accumulation of
capital, which is exemplified by her admiration for d. Mercedes (39-40/39), who
*
“tempted to destroy the articles on display” (83).
1 "
“The women who stood there gaping, admiring that trash, deserved a whipping” (83).
+ “unimportant, but [he] thought [he] noticed in them grave symptoms of social corruption” (83).
§ “[f]rivolous, incapable of grasping an idea.”
“stupid or pornographic inclinations” (39).
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leads, comparatively speaking, a more luxurious life, and, most importantly, by
her preference for Juliao Tavares over Luis da Silva. For Luis da Silva, this
preference constitutes a form of prostitution (86/93), and, from that moment on, he
identifies any display of commodities with prostituition, even when these
commodities, such as literary works, are misrecognized as being produced outside
the economic logic. He thus begins to feel that “[c]ertos lugares que [lhe] davam
prazer tornaram-se odiosos” (7).* In front of a bookstore,
olh[a] com desgosto as vitrinas, t[em] a impressao de que se acham ali pessoas
exibindo titulos e pregos nos rostos, vendendo-se. E uma especie de
prostituixjao. Um sujeito chega, atenta, encolhendo os ombros ou estirando o
beifo, naqueles desconhecidos que se amontoam por detras do vidro. Outro
larga uma opiniao a-toa. Basbaques escutam, saem. E os autores, resignados,
mostram as letras e os algarismos, oferecendo-se como as mulheres da Rua da
Lama. (7)1 "
In Luis da Silva’s discourse, the symbolic devaluation of cultural products, which
occurs once they begin to circulate according to the economic logic structuring the
exchange of commodities, is evinced both in the display of such products and in the
objectification of the subject, or rather, in the subject’s desire to occupy the object
position. This displacement from the subject to the object position, which is
epitomized by prostitution, is inscribed in Luis da Silva’s text, insofar as the possible
exchange between the subject and object positions, which is embodied by the author
and the work and is implicit in the ambiguous signification of “rosto,” is soon
resolved into an objectification of the subject, indicated by the use of the reflexive
verbs “vender-se” and “oferecer-se.”1 5 Such an identification between the subject
*
“Certain places that formerly gave [him] pleasure have now become odious” (1).
" “[he] look[s] disgustedly in the window, ha[s] an impression that the people inside displaying their
names and cost on their faces are selling themselves. It is a sort of prostitution. A polite fellow
arrives, shrugging his shoulders or scowling at the strangers accumulating behind the glass. Someone
else drops an opinion at random. The dummies listen, walk on. And the resigned centres of this
attention [the authors] continue to exhibit their signs and prices like the whores on the rua da Lama”
(1).
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and the object is the most clear, in Luis da Silva’s eyes, when the strategies a
social agent employs in order to produce symbolic capital are also the most evident,
as in the display of high-priced possessions that one may find during a night at the
opera. Thus, when fantasizing about Marina’s social performance at the theater, Luis
da Silva imagines that “Marina passeava o lorgnon pelos camarotes, indiferente, e os
rapazes abotoavam para ela os olhos gulosos” (121) and that she did it “[s]o para se
mostrar, so para mostrar a roupa e o lorgnon” (124), which “insulta[va] as mulheres
dos outros camarotes” (122).* In the gaze structuring the theatricality of a night at
the opera; in the desire to see and to be seen, social agents may take up and exchange
the positions of the desiring subject and that of the object of desire, which Luis da
Silva wishes to see dissociated from each other in the consumption of cultural
goods.1 6
Although Luis da Silva is irritated with this theatricality and its performance
of the objectification of subjects, he is also attracted by its structuring gaze and by
the social identity that agents construct in the very act of socially consuming a
cultural product.1 7 He admits, in fact, that he had “[njenhum desejo de fugir das
pessoas que iam ao teatro. Sentia era vontade de ir tambem, sentar-[se] numa cadeira
junto do palco, bater palmas, olhar os camarotes” (119).* Nevertheless, he does not
have enough money to buy the tickets — all that he has left are “niqueis” [“pennies”]
(119/132; “nickeis,” in Kaplan’s translation) — and must thus borrow it. Since
neither Pimentel nor Moises appeared at his home, Luis da Silva thinks of getting the
amount he needed from the money Vitoria, his maid, used to hide in the garden,
Luis da Silva imagines that “Marina passed her lorgnette indifferently over the boxes, and the young
men stared at her with gluttonous eyes” (134) and that she did it “only to display herself, to show off
her clothes and lorgnette” (136), which “insult[ed] the women in the other boxes” (135).
* “[n]o desire to avoid the people who were going to the theatre. (He] felt like going there [himjself,
sitting down on a chair near the stage, clapping [his] hands, gazing at the boxes” (132).
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107
burying it next to a fence. In order to justify his action, which he initially finds
“indigna” [“vile”] (121/134), he not only reminds himself of the money that Vitoria
used to find on the floor of the house (and which she might very well have
mistankenly buried) (122/134), but also invokes the logic structuring the economic
exchanges in which “modern” high-capital agents, such as Juliao Tavares, engage:
Restituiria as moedas com aumento. Considerei que Vitoria nao se
assemelhava ao tio de Moises. Vitoria nao tinha a paixao do lucro: apenas
guardava enterrado o dinheiro ganho. E queria que, muito ou pouco, ele
estivesse ali em seguranga. A ideia de que ela ia surgir, resmungando,
arrastando os pes, reumaticos, paralisou-me os dedos. Surpreendi-me a dizer e
a repetir em voz baixa:
- O dinheiro foi feito para circular. (124)
Against the “old” economic practice of an accumulation of wealth in the money form
(that is, hoarding), Luis da Silva attempts to put into play an accumulation of capital,
which, as Marx notes, cannot occur if wealth does not circulate.1 8 Thus, in
circulating Vitoria’s money, Luis da Silva may produce capital for Vitoria, returning
the coins with an increase in their number and in their total amount, and at the same
time convert that economic capital into other forms of capital by investing it, for
example, in the consumption of cultural products, such as opera. Nonetheless, the
possession of economic capital to invest in cultural consumption does not necessarily
entail a thorough comprehension of the logic of “money begets money,” which
guides the accumulation of capital through the circulation of wealth. When Luis da
Silva is walking to the theater, a shoeshine boy looks at his feet and taps his box, as
if to indicate that his shoes needed some polishing (126/139). In so doing, he
*
“I would replace the money with one hundred per cent interest. I considered that Victoria had no
resemblance to Moyses’s uncle. Victoria had no passion for profit, she only buried the money she
earned. And I [sic; the translation here should say “she,” not “I”] wanted it to lie there more or less in
safety. The notion that she might suddenly appear, grumbling, dragging her rheumatic feet, paralysed
my fingers. I surprised myself muttering softly:
- Money was made to be circulated” (136-37).
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practically points out to Luis da Silva that the logic of “money begets money”
also entails a symbolization of a certain accumulation of capital, which is objectified,
in this case, in the shiny finish put on a pair of shoes.
As Marx points out, “[wjhen a certain stage of development has been
reached, a conventional degree of prodigality, which is also an exhibition of wealth,
and consequently a source of credit, becomes a business necessity to the
‘unfortunate’ capitalist. Luxury enters into capital’s expenses of representation”
(Capital 741). Such an investment in luxury as the symbolization of a high degree of
accumulation of capital is thus part and parcel of the production of capital. It
indicates that the logic of “money begets money,” which guides the high-capital
mode of production of capital, differs radically from the logic of the penny jar, which
is, in fact, a lot closer to Vitoria’s hoarding habits. In order to invest according to the
logic of “money begets money” one must make a cohesive, overall investment in the
production of capital, including the social symbolization of a certain accumulation of
capital. One must, in this sense, already possess a great amount of accumulated
capital if one is to produce more capital. What the logic of “money begets money”
presupposes, then, is a social distinction objectified in economic capital: only the
“money” that corresponds to the social position of high-capital agents may beget
more of that same money. To a certain extent, Juliao Tavares, Marina, and Luis da
Silva, all recognize that presupposed social distinction. Juliao Tavares, in buying
Marina the clothes necessary for her to go to the opera (112/123); Marina, in
parading the clothes Tavares bought her, thereby accentuating the symbolization of a
high degree of accumulation of capital that is already inscribed in the clothes
themselves; and Luis da Silva, who does not possess the capital to invest according
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109
to the logic of “money begets money” and therefore misrecognizes it as a form of
prostitution. He must thus invest against it.
Of all forms of counter-investments, it is the position of the slave and
landowner, which his grandfather, Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva,
occupied, that phantasmatically predominates in the construction of Luis da Silva’s
discourse. For it stands in an almost diametrical opposition to the social
decomposition that Luis da Silva perceives in the telegrams he reads in the
newspaper office, a decomposition that is analogous to his family’s decadence. In
contrast with his fear of dominant social agents, which he explicitly articulates in his
narrative (10/4), and his obedience to them, his grandfather “naturally” wields
power:
Afmal, para se livrarem de mim, atiraram-me este osso que vou roendo com
odio.
- Chegue mais cedo amanha, seu Luis.
E eu chego.
- Informe la, seu Luis.
E eu informo. Como sou diferente de meu avo! . .. Quando a politica de
padre Inacio caiu, o delegado prendeu um cangaceiro de Cabo Preto. O velho
Trajano subiu a vila e pediu ao doutor juiz de direito a soltura do criminoso.
Impossivel. Andou, virou, mexeu, gastou dinheiro com habeas-corpus - e o
doutor duro como chifre.
- Esta direito, exclamou Trajano plantando o sapato de couro cru na palha
da cadeira do juiz. Eu vou soltar o rapaz.
No sabado reuniu o povo da feira, homens e mulheres, mo?os e velhos,
mandou desmanchar o cercado do vigario, armou todos com estacas e foi
derrubar a cadeia. (28)
*
“Finally, to be rid of me, they flung me this bone, which I gnaw hatefully.
‘Come earlier tomorrow, Seu Luiz.’
And I arrive.
‘Report there, Seu Luiz.’
And I report’ How different I am from my grandfather! . .. When Father Ignacio’s intrigues
failed, the judge arrested a highwayman from Cabo Preto. Old Trajano went up to the village and
asked the judge to release the criminal. Impossible. He stormed, he threatened, he rode back and
forth, spent money on habeas corpus — but the magistrate remained hard as nails.
‘All right,’ said Trajano, planting his rawhide boot in the doctor’s wicker chair. ‘I’ll free the boy
myself.’
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110
The satisfaction that Luis da Silva says he gets from telling this story stems not
only from the reversal of social positions (from dominated to dominant), but also
from the possibility of putting into practice a logic that opposes the economic logic
of “money begets money.” Against the impersonalism of modem forms of
production and accumulation of capital, Luis da Silva valorizes the logic of
personalism that also characterizes the landed oligarchy in Brazil.1 9
As Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz notes, the transition from personalism to
impersonalism is accentuated once Brazilian society becomes more urbanized.
According to her, “[njestas cidades assim desenvolvidas, ao antigo relacionamento
de tipo primario, pessoal e afetivo, pouco a pouco se associou e cresceu o
relacionamento de tipo secundario, impessoal, indiferente, nao ligando mais
individuos e sim categorias de individuos” (202).* In effect, it is in part because of
his rural background that Luis da Silva resents not only the massification of urban
life, but also the consequent indifference, the impersonalism with which he is
treated: “Estava tao abandonado aqui neste deserto... So se dirigiam a mim para dar
ordens .... Fora dai, o silencio, a indiferen9a” (25).^ Nonetheless, one must also
On Saturday he gathered the people in the market place, men and women, young and old,
ordered them to smash the curate’s fence, armed them with sticks, and went to break down the jail”
(24-25).
The translation “when Father Ignacio’s intrigues failed” for “quando a politica de padre Inacio
caiu” does not seem to be accurate. Bearing in mind the historical context of Brazil’s Primeira
Republica [First Republic) (1889-1930), the “politics of Father Inacio” most likely refers to
“coronelismo,” that is, a political system based on exchanges between the government and the
landowners, who were known as “coroneis” [“colonels”) (Carvalho, Jose Murilo de 132). As Victor
Nunes Leal points out. Catholic priests often functioned as the intellectual leaders who were allied to
the “coroneis” (22, n. 1). Within this context, one may read the taking apart of the curate’s fence as a
sign of that alliance, rather than an act of violence (the verb “dcsmanchar” in Portuguese does not
necessarily carry a connotation of physical violence as the English word “smash” does; such a
connotation may be added depending on the context in which the verb is used and is generally
indicated by tone of voice).
*
“In these emerging cities, relationships of a secondary type, impersonal, indifferent, which did not
link individuals but categories of individuals, gradually grew and paralleled the old relationships of a
primary type, personal and affective.”
“I was so desolate in this wilderness... They turned to me only to give me orders .... Aside from
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I l l
take into consideration the fact that the decadence of Luis da Silva’s family,
which begins with Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva and is completed
with Luis da Silva, occurs within the larger historical context of the decline of the
landed oligarchy, which took place during the Primeira Republica and culminates
with the Revolution of 1930.2 0 Working as a “parafus[o] insignificant[e] na maquina
do Estado” (114),* a “screw” that the State apparatus can easily replace (9/4), Luis da
Silva faces also a specific form of impersonalism, tinted with the idea that the
common interest supersedes personal ones. When Luis da Silva recounts the first
time he saw Marina in the neighboring backyard, for example, he says that, in
noticing that she also observed him, he shied away: “Sou timido: quando me vejo
diante de senhoras, emburro, digo besteiras. Trinta e cinco anos, funcionario
publico, homem de ocupagoes marcadas pelo regulamento. O Estado nao me paga
para eu olhar as pernas das garotas” (34); Although Luis da Silva alludes to the
State as a form of justification (other than his timidity) for his uneasiness, the cliche
“o Estado nao me paga” evinces how the common good, which the State and its
servants embody, should supplant private interests. The impersonalism of the State
apparatus that turns Luis da Silva into one more replaceable screw within the State
machinery is inscribed, in other words, within the emergence of the State as the
guarantor of the common interests of the Nation. Impersonalism, from Luis da
Silva’s point of view, thus coincides with a socio-political investment in the notion
of the res publica.
this, silence, indifference” (22).
*
“insignificant [screw] in the State machinery” (125)
“I am timid; when I find myself in front of women, I make an ass of myself and say stupid things.
Thirty-five years old, a public official, a man with occupations marked by regulations. The State does
not pay me to look at girls’ legs” (32).
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112
In this sense, one might argue that Luis da Silva’s dissatisfaction with the
power relation which is implicit in the scene in which someone (most likely his boss
in the “reparti9ao publica”) tells him to arrive early and to report partly stems from
the fact that it is an impersonal, indirect form of power relations. This
impersonalism or indirectness is not only a matter of symbolic and physical social
distance (he states that dr. Gouveia — his landlord — , the governor, and the secretary
“dominam-[no] sem mostrar o focinho: manifestam-se pelo arame, num pedapapel” [118]),* but also of a representation of the social body. As an imagined body,
whose functioning is regulated by common written laws, the social body entails, by
definition, a disembodiment of its representatives. Hence, what Luis da Silva hears
in the scene he recalls is merely an anonymous voice that represents the interests of
the State and, consequently, of the common good.
His grandfather, on the contrary, embodies the law; he is the law. In the
scene that Luis da Silva recalls with satisfaction, the remnants of private power
function as a belated form of patrimonialism, which, as Jose Murilo de Carvalho
explains, represented “uma forma de dominagao tradicional ligada a expansao do
poder pessoal do monarca” (141).* In his narrative, Luis da Silva recollects an old
childhood game that functions as a metaphor and a performance of this extension of
the law and the personal power that the monarch embodies, indicating its continuity.
He states: “La estava novamente entrando no passado, torcendo-me como parafiiso. -
‘Rei meu senhor mandou dizer que fossem ao cemiterio e trouxessem um osso de
defiinto. ’ Quern tinha coragem? Os mais atrevidos chegavam ate o muro de seu
Honorio, no fim da rua. Adiante o lugar era mal-assombrado e ninguem se
*
“dominate [him] without showing their faces: they manifest themselves over the wire, on a scrap of
paper” (130).
“a traditional form of domination that was related to the expansion of the monarch’s personal
power.”
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113
aventurava por la” (116).* Although the game functions, within the social group
of young boys, as a test of courage and as a manner of defining their positions within
the group, it often involves a sadistic pleasure of humiliation and abasement, since
the player who leads the game dictates what the others must do. In accepting the
rules of the game, the players recognize that the one who leads has the authority that
the monarch confers upon him by word of mouth. “O rei mandou” is a linguistic
formula that invests speakers with the delegated power, characteristic of monarchs,
of transforming words into acts and facts.
Similarly, Luis da Silva’s grandfather is able to command the people and to
transform their actions into a fact, namely, the release of the “cangaceiro” who
belonged to Cabo Preto’s gang. Although social agents do not enjoy the same
interchangeability as the players in the childhood game (for one of the reasons why
the game is so enticing is that players may take turns occupying the position of the
leader), Trajano’s “mandonismo,” which the verb “mandar” makes explicit, is based
on the personalism of the relations he establishes and on the favors that are
exchanged.2 1 This exchange constitutes the system of do ut des. as Nunes Leal calls
it, or that of gift and counter-gift, in Queiroz’s borrowing from Marcel Mauss (167).
If, on the one hand, Trajano congregates his “parentela” (i.e., the individuals who,
belonging to different immediate families and being sometimes separated far apart
from each other, are bound to each other by personal relations and the favors
exchanged, which creates reciprocal obligations [Queiroz 181]) and releases the
gang’s member, Cabo Preto’s “cangaceiros” respect, in turn, Trajano’s family and
possessions.2 2 According to Luis da Silva, Trajano sees, on his way to the village,
* _ _ _
“There I was entering the past again, twisting like a screw. ‘The king, my master, orders you to go
to the cemetery and bring back a dead man’s bone. ’ Who had the courage? The most daring got as far
as Seu Honorio’s wall, at the end of the street. From there on, the place was haunted, and no one
ventured beyond” (128).
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Cabo Preto’s gang hidden in the vegetation in order to not frighten sinha
Germana, Trajano’s wife (27-28/24-25), thus indicating, as Lucia Helena Carvalho
notes, an exchange of favors between Trajano and Cabo Preto (42).
In complying with his obligation with Cabo Preto, Trajano also exercises a
physical violence that is part and parcel of the personalism structuring his social
relations. For personalism, when practiced within the system in which
“mandonismo” is a form of belated patrimonialism, not only blurrs the physical
distinctions and limits of bodies, but also, in so doing, favors a physical inscription
of the law structuring the social order. As a historically transformed form of the
personalism of slavery, where the slave’s body belongs to the master, the
personalism of “mandonismo” functions as a form of possession in which the desires
of the other are not recognized. As Luis da Silva notes,
Sinha Germana fora de Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva, so dele,
mas ha tanto tempo! Trajano possuira escravos, prendera cabras no tronco. E
os cangaceiros, vendo-o, varriam o chao com a aba do chapeu de couro. Tudo
agora diferente. Sinha Germana nunca havia trastejado: ali no duro, as costas
calejando a esffegar-se no couro cru do leito de Trajano. - ‘Sinha Germana!’ E
sinha Germana, doente ou com saude, quisesse ou nao quisesse, la estava
pronta, livre de
desejos .... (101-102) *
As Luis da Silva’s description of his grandfather’s social relations indicates, the
same personalism that turns the bodies of all those who are related to the landowner
into an extension of the landowner’s body also constitutes the logic for the physical
punishment of bodies. As long as the law is only recognized in its embodied form,
“Sinha Germana had belonged to Trajano Pereira de Aquino Cavalcante e Silva, his alone, but that
was a long time ago. Trajano possessed slaves, he tied the Negroes to the stocks. And the
cangaceiros seeing him, swept the ground with the brims of their leather hats. Now everything was
different. Sinha Germana had never fretted, lying there on the rough saddle, her shoulders calloused
from rubbing Trajano’s rawhide bed. ‘Sinha Germana!’ And Sinha Germana, sick or healthy, willing
or not, was ready, free of desires ...” (110).
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115
its transgression must also, in turn, be physically inscribed in the body of the
transgressor.2 3
In this sense, the scenes of physical inscriptions of the law that Luis da Silva
gradually incorporates into his discourse function, as Lucia Helena de Carvalho
points out (30-46), as a displaced representation of his repressed desire to strangle
Juliao Tavares, which appears for the first time when he sees him flirting with
Marina (75/79). One of these recurring scenes is the story of a “senhor de engenho”
who had the young boy who deflowered his daughter bound, pricked him with a
knife, cut his testicles and thrust them down his throat, tore his lips, and finally killed
him by opening the vein in his neck (108/118). One must also note, however, that
these scenes allow for a reconstruction of the logic whereby Luis da Silva, as the
legitimate heir to the dominant social position of the landed oligarchy, might inscribe
the law on Tavares’s body as “naturally” as his grandfather used to.2 4 When Luis da
Silva begins to obsessively pursue Juliao Tavares, he follows him to the cafe, where
he sees a mirror on which white letters are written. He starts to decompose the
words and to form new ones with the letters (153/170). From where he sits, he sees
the letters “estampa[das]” [“stamped”] on Tavares’s face, and he notes: “Dos
letreiros brancos saiam as vezes nomes que se aplicavam bem a Juliao Tavares. Se
eu fosse um cangaceiro sertanejo e encontrasse Juliao Tavares numa estrada, meter-
me-ia com ele na capueira e imprimir-lhe-ia no focinho, com ferro, algumas das
letras brancas que lhe apareciam na pele e na roupa” (154).* Nonetheless, the logic
of personalism that articulates in Luis da Silva’s discourse, by means of an
identification with either the old slave and landowners or with the “jagungos” or
*
“From the white letters sometimes emerged names that fitted Juliao Tavares well. If I had been a
cangaceiro from the backlands and had met Juliao Tavares on the highway, I would have dragged him
into the woods and stamped on his face with an iron some of those white letters that appeared on his
breast and clothes” (171).
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“cangaceiros,” the possibility of physically inscribing the law on Juliao Tavares’s
body, calling him by his name, is not only decadent, in terms of his own personal
trajectory, but also anachronistic, in relation to the historical context.2 5 As Luis da
Silva himself points out, the refuge in the past is no longer possible, for he is not
what he was back then (20/17); he is not, objectively speaking, the heir to the
dominant social position of the slave and landowner not only because of the family
decadence, but also because he cannot, historically speaking, occupy that position in
the same manner that his grandfather did.
Within the historical transformation that paralleled the decadence of Luis da
Silva’s family, the new social position that was objectively open to him was that of
the intellectual or cultural producer. As Queiroz reminds us, in referring to O tronco
do ipe. by Jose de Alencar, the accumulation of capital that binds one generation of
investors to the next often involves the conversion of accumulated economic capital
into educational or cultural capital (73-75). Such is the case, for example, with
Juliao Tavares’s trajectory, in that the economic capital his parents accumulated
through commerce is re-invested into the son’s educational and cultural capital, and
Juliao Tavares becomes, unlike Luis da Silva, a “bacharel” whose discourse puts into
play, as the scene in the Instituto Historico indicates (44/43), all the rhetorical
strategies and the ideologemes of the consensus. Lacking the educational capital that
would more easily enable him to occupy the social position of the organic
intellectual of either the rural oligarchy or the “modern” social body, the res publica.
Luis da Silva reduces to economic exchanges the relations between
intellectual/cultural producers and economic producers.2 6 For cultural producers,
cultural goods only indirectly yield economic profits by means of a displacement and
a postponement. Cultural production thus involves a strategy of investment through
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117
which economic profits are denied and, consequently, only belatedly made. For
Luis da Silva, on the contrary, cultural production is directly related to economic
profits. He says: “Os chefes politicos do interior brigam demais. Procuram-me,
explicam os acontecimentos locais, e fapo diatribes medonhas que, assinadas por
eles, vao para a materia paga. Ganho pela reda9ao e ganho uns tantos por cento pela
publica?ao” (45).*
In misrecognizing cultural production as the act of “alinhar adjetivos, doces
ou amargos, em conformidade com a encomenda” (46)J Luis da Silva also
relinquishes utilizing one of the main functions of discourse, namely, that of the
author. Without the classificatory function of author, which Foucault points out
(“What Is an Author?” 147), cultural producers cannot accumulate capital. For,
through the author-function, cultural producers may establish a defined literary
corpus in which different social agents may invest and from which they may profit.2 7
For Luis da Silva, the possibility o f accumulation of capital by means of cultural
production is hampered by his recognition that his writings are valueless:
Habituei-me a escrever, como ja disse. Nunca estudei, sou um ignorante, e julgo
que os meus escritos nao prestam. Mas adquiri cedo o vicio de ler romances e
posso, com facilidade, arranjar um artigo, talvez um conto. Compus, no tempo
da metrica e da rima, um livro de versos. Eram duzentos sonetos,
aproximadamente. Nao me foi possivel publica-los, e com a idade compreendi
que nao valiam nada. . . . Um dia, na pensao de d. Aurora, o meu vizinho Macedo
co n g o u a elogiar um desses sonetos, que por sinal era dos piores, e acabou
oferecendo-me por ele cinqiienta mil-reis. Nem foi preciso copiar: arranquei a
folha do livro e recebi o dinheiro, depois de jurar que a coisa estava inedita. . . .
Desde entao procuro avistar-me com mo90s ingenuos que me compram esses
produtos. Antigamente eram estampados em revistas, mas agora figuram em
“The political chiefs of the interior quarrel too much. They look me up, explain the local events,
and I write frightful diatribes, which they sign and sell to the papers. I gain so much for editing and
also earn a certain percentage on publication” (45).
' “writ[ing] sweet or bitter adjectives hurriedly, depending on the request” (45-46).
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semanarios da roga, e vendo-os a dez mil-reis. O volume esta reduzido a um
caderno de cinquenta folhas amarelas e roidas pelos ratos. (45)
Evidently, Luis da Silva’s assertion that his literary production is valueless is, to a
certain extent, a misperception, since no one would buy those “products,” as he
himself calls them, if they did not have a certain (even if little) literary value.
Nonetheless, one might say that there is indeed a certain potential valuelessness in
Luis da Silva’s writings, given the indexes we find in his narrative: Luis da Silva’s
grasp of the evolution of the Brazilian literary field in the first two decades of the
twentieth century, the geographical dislocation in the publication of his writings, and
their economic devaluation.2 8 In this case, the value of Luis da Silva’s writings
would be reduced to the exchange value of the paper itself, which, as a commodity,
may serve as material for the production of goods. Such a devaluation is similar to
the reduction of Luis da Silva’s capacity, as a worker, to the exchange-value that his
labour-power had, as a commodity, in the job market.
Had Luis da Silva perceived his replaceability, as a worker, not through a
practical knowledge, but according to a critique of political economy, he might have
occupied the position of the leftist intellectual. In Angustia. this position is brought
into the narrative through the figure of Moises, whose ideas are “francamente
revolucionarias” [“frankly revolutionary”] (47/47). Moises talks about class
counsciousness (48/48) and carries “folhetos incendiarios” [“inflammatory leaflets”]
“I am used to writing, as I said before. I have never studied, I am ignorant and believe my
scribblings are worthless. But I early acquired the vice of reading novels, and I can, with some
facility, compose an article or a story. I even wrote a book of rhymed, metrical verse. There were
approximately two hundred sonnets. It was impossible for me to publish them, and with the passage
of time I learned how bad they were.. . . One day in Dona Aurora’s boarding-house my neighbour
Macedo commenced to praise one of the worst of these sonnets, and ended by offering me fifty
milreis for it. It was not even necessaiy to copy it: I tore the leaf from the book and received the
money after taking an oath that the poem had never been printed.. . . Since then I am constantly on
the lookout for ingenuous young men to purchase these products. Formerly they were published in
reviews, but now they appear in weekly farm papers, and I sell them for ten milreis apiece. The
volume is reduced to a notebook of fifty yellow pages that the rats keep on gnawing” (44-45).
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(25/21), which he distributes to people of the lower class (164/183); he reads
telegrams about the revolution in China (46/46), and, after the assassination of Juliao
Tavares, he reads to Luis da Silva a book about it; he believes that “tudo vai acabar,
tudo, a comegar pelo tio, que esfola os fregueses” (25)* and that art should be a tool
of political propaganda, accessible to all (161/180; 97/105); and his only interest in
Luis da Silva’s native region, the “sertao” [“backlands”], lies in the “soffimento da
multidao, a tragedia periodica das secas” (28). ' Nevertheless, unlike Moises, Luis da
Silva has ideas that are “fragmentadas, instaveis e numerosas” (47),1 and he points
out, even if merely to irritate his friend, that the chances of a proletarian revolution
that might put an end to capitalist exploitation are slim in Brazil because neither the
workers, who are “encolhidos” [“cringed”], nor the peasants, who vote with the
government, are capable of carrying it out (47-48/47). Although Luis da Silva states
that he wished he were not right and that he wanted to hear more from Moises and to
see seu Ivo rebelling (48), he does not have, as Mourao notes (106), the full
identification with the proletariat, understood here as the least capitalized section of
the working class, an identification that is characteristic of leftist intellectuals.2 9
As Malard points out, what hampers this full identification is Luis da Silva’s
condition of man of letters and journalist (22), that is, the cultural capital that is
foreign to the lower working class and which Luis da Silva accumulates. If, as Luis
da Silva notices, “os vagabundos nao tinham confian9a [nele]” (113),§ it is because
they have, just like Luis da Silva himself, a practical sense of the social distance
structuring any possible relation between them and Luis da Silva. Such a distance is
*
“everything is ending, everything, beginning with his uncle, who fleeces his customers” (21).
^ “suffering of the masses, the periodical tragedy of the droughts” (25).
* “fragmentary, numerous, and unstable” (47).
§ “the tramps had no confidence in [him]” (124).
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symbolized in how they address Luis da Silva, using the formal term “senhor”
[“Sir”] (116/127), and objectified in the social distinction between their language and
their bodily hexis and those of Luis da Silva. If, on the one hand, Luis da Silva’s
words “nao tinham para eles signiflcagao” (113),* Luis da Silva cannot, on the other
hand, comprehend the language of a story teller, in that “as particularidades que
provocavam admiragao perdiam-se” (1 15).+ Whereas Luis da Silva is a “sujeito de
modos corretos, palido, tossindo por causa da chuva que lhe havia molhado a roupa”
(113), a “sujeito de fala arrevezada e modos de parafuso” (116),J the vagabonds are
characterized by physical strength and an apparently freer carriage and appropriation
of the social space (they wear sleeveless shirts and clogs; they laugh loud, play
carnival songs, and show happiness). This manner of carrying their bodies is
homologous to the poverty and roughness of the bar, which serves “cachaga,” has
kerosene boxes as stools and a dirty, wet, and greasy counter (113-16/124-28).
Given the ambiguity of Luis da Silva’s relation to the vagabonds, he turns the
objective distance into a symbolic approximation by means of a resignification of the
signs of the vagabonds’ social position (and hence of their distance from that of Luis
da Silva). Although, as Luis da Silva notes, literature distanced him from the
vagabonds, in that all he knows about them is taken from books, leading him to take
a reporter-like perspective through which he merely “colhfe] impressoes” [“collect[s]
impressions”] (114/125), literature may also function as a point from which to
construct a symbolic approximation to them. That involves not only a sympathy for
the sufferings one reads about, but also a possible misrecognition of the signs of a
“had no meaning for them” (124).
+
“the details that provoked admiration escaped [him]” (127). In fact, Luis da Silva cannot understand
other symbolic systems, such as music or physical expressions, that are common to the vagabonds
(115/127).
* “pale fellow decently dressed, coughing because the rain had wet his clothes” (125), a “fellow who
spoke a twisted language, like a screw” (127).
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low-capital social position. In Luis da Silva’s eyes, everything in that scene in
which he acts more as a spectator than a participant is marked by an extreme
simplicity (115/127), the same simplicity that he lost in moving from the countryside
to the city.
Nonetheless, Luis da Silva’s symbolic approximation to the vagabonds does
not hinder the construction of a fantasy in which he is completely distanced from
them due to the implementation of a proletarian revolution. His fantasy is triggered
by a sentence he reads on a wall (‘“Proletaries, uni-vos’” [164])* and which contains
two grammar errors: it lacks a comma and a hyphen. Even though Luis da Silva
considers these mistakes unimportant, he cannot but feel indignation about them:
Aquela maneira de escrever comendo os sinais indignou-me. Nao
dispenso as virgulas e os tragos. Quereriam fazer uma revolugao sem virgulas
e sem tragos? Numa revolugao de tal ordem nao haveria lugar para mim. Mas
entao?
- Um homem sapeca as pestanas, conhece literatura, colabora nos jornais,
e isto nao vale nada? Pois sim. E so pegar um carvao, sujar a parede. Pois sim.
Moises que se arranje.
Senti despeito. Afastar-me-iam da repartigao e do jornal, outros me
substituiriam. Eu seria um anacronismo, uma inutilidade, e me queixaria dos
tempos novos, bradaria contra os barbaros que escrevem sem virgulas e sem
tragos. (164-65)^
Unable to give up an authorized language to which he had access by means of an
accumulation of linguistic and cultural capital and which legitimates him, as a
capitalized social agent, to occupy either the social position of the the cultural
‘“Proletarians unite’” (183).
t t
‘That manner of writing posters made me indignant. I cannot dispense with commas and designs.
Would they wish to make a revolution without commas or patterns? In a revolution of that sort there
would be no place for me. But afterwards?
‘A man studies much, knows literature, collaborates on papers, and is this woth nothing? Why
yes, to be sure. It is good for holding charcoal and dirtying the wall. No, senhor. Moyses must find
something better. ’
I felt humiliated. They would remove me from the office and newspaper, and others would
replace me. I would be a useless anachronism, bewailing the old days, railing against the barbarians
who write without commas or design” (183-84).
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producer or the leftist intellectual, Luis da Silva not only finds himself displaced
within the revolutionary movement, but also accentuates, precisely because he
cannot invest in an emerging project for a restructuring of the social order, his
ambiguous social position.
3.3. Decapitalized Agent, Psychotic Logic
The apparent absence of a situs within the social field constitutes,
paradoxically, the point from which Luis da Silva constructs a vision of the social
world. For him, that point of view is structured according to a psychotic logic that
opposes the socio-economic logic (in its different variations), reinforces and at the
same time phantasmatically resolves that ambiguity by means of an attention to, and
detachment from, objective reality. In his study “Graciliano Ramos e o romance:
ensaio de interpreta9ao,” Floriano Gonsalves points out how the narrative in
Angustia has a bipartite structure, in that Luis da Silva’s reminiscences are
interpolated by scenes that take place in the present (54). The succession of narrative
planes, in this case, corresponds to two different temporalities: the chronological
time that is marked by the sequence of objective phenomena and the “interior” time,
as he calls it, which is a reversible time constituted by the influx of associations of
memories and which allows for a subjective analysis (64-65).
Such a structure is particularly evident when, in the beginning of his
narrative, Luis da Silva finds himself in the street-car that, in moving to and from the
center of town, prompts him to immerse in his past, but that, in stopping, impels him
to focus on the objective reality. Almost like a camera that, in turning around,
discloses to the viewer the reality sorrounding it, Luis da Silva notes down what he
sees: “os focos da ilumina?ao publica, espapados, chochilando, piongos, tao piongos
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como luzes de cemiterio; um palacio transformado em albergue de vagabundos;
escuridoes, capoeiras, barreiras cortadas a pique no monte; a frontaria de uma fabrica
de tecidos; e, de longe em longe, atraves de ramagens, pedaqos de mangue,
cinzentos” (12).* As a merely ennumerative narrative sequence, Luis da Silva’s
perception of the real constitutes a form of paratactical construction that produces, as
Rui Mourao notes, a “carreamento acumulador” [“cumulative drag”] that gives the
impression of a linguistic “amontoamento” [“heap”] (90).
Since paratactical constructions omit the relational terms through which
subjects reconstruct the social relations structuring objective reality, they exclude the
chain of social acts through which social agents accumulate capital. Such chain is
reduced to the mere sequentiality of language, that is, to a simple addition of
observable elements, which, within the narrative sequence, gives the impression of a
heaping of disparate objects, beings, or phenomena, as Mourao points out.
Moreover, in disconnecting and desequencing different phenomena, Luis da Silva
also loses the notions of both physical and temporal distance. When walking to
work, for instance, he states that he knows neither where he is nor how much time
goes by in his hesitation (22/18). Without the notion of a social division of both
space and time, agents can neither comprehend social reality nor act productively
within it, as Luis da Silva points out: “Lembro-me de um fato, de outro fato anterior
ou posterior ao primeiro, mas os dois vem juntos. E os tipos que evoco nao tern
relevo. Tudo empastado, confuso. Em seguida os dois acontecimentos se distanciam
*
“the lights of the lamp-posts, sluggish, sleepy, and depressing like the lights in a cemetery; a palace
transformed into a flophouse for tramps; gloominess, cages, barricades cut with picks in the mountain;
the front of a textile factory; and far away in the distance, behind the foliage, pieces of a grayish
swamp” (7; translation slightly modified).
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e entre eles nascem outros acontecimentos que vao crescendo ate me darem
sofrivel nogao de realidade” (16).*
What is thus at stake in Luis da Silva’s paratactical perception of the real is
precisely the possibility of negotiating the value of one’s phantasmatic constructs
with other (often competing) social agents to whom one relates within the social
field. For, if the formation of value cannot be performed independently of the social
processes of valorization and accumulation of capital — which entail a relational
division and sequencing of time within which actions may be performed according to
a socio-economic logic — , Luis da Silva’s psychotic perception of the real as being
formed by juxtaposed elements forecloses the possibility of a social formation of
value by divesting the real of the relations that makes it a social reality. He
perceives, in other words, the real as real, in itself, instead of distancing himself from
it in order to perform a reconstruction of the real that, although never reproducing it,
enables subjects to view the world according to a socio-economic logic.
Luis da Silva’s particularly focused attention to the real or, more specifically,
to “certos pormenores neuroticamente fixados, . . . pedagos descosidos e
incompletos[,]. . . partes destacadas do todo” (Candido, “Bichos” 85),' is
exceptionally evident in a scene with Marina. While reading a book in his backyard,
Luis da Silva observes different parts of Marina’s body that come into his field of
visual and olfactory perception: her red shoes, her legs, tighs, buttocks, and odour
(57-59/59-62). Caught by Marina in his “entorpecimento estupido” [“dull stupor”]
(60/62), as he calls it, Luis da Silva has the impression that Marina had been
*
“I remember one fact, then another either before or after the first, but the two appear simultaneously.
The figures I evoke have no relief. All blurred, pasted together. Later the two incidents are separated
and between them are bom other episodes that keep on swelling until they give me a tortuous notion
of reality” (11).
+ “certain neurotically fixated details,. . . disconnected, incomplete pieces[,]. . . parts detached from
the whole.”
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dismembered: “Veio-me o pensamento maluco de que tinham dividido Marina.
Serrada viva, como se fazia antigamente. Esta ideia absurda e sanguinaria deu-me
grande satisfagao. Nadegas e pemas para um lado, cabega e tronco para outro. A
parte inferior mexia-se como um rabo de lagartixa cortado” (60). But, as he gets to
know her, Luis da Silva is able to form a whole out of the many parts composing his
neighbor:
Naturalmente gastei meses construindo esta Marina que vive dentro de mim,
que e diferente da outra, mas se confunde com ela. Antes de eu conhecer a
mocinha dos cabelos de fogo, ela me aparecia dividida numa grande quantidade
de pedagos de mulher, e as vezes os pedagos nao se combinavam bem, davam-
me a impressao de que a vizinha estava desconjuntada. Agora mesmo temo
deixar aqui uma sucessao de pegas e de qualidades: nadegas, coxas, olhos,
bragos, inquietagao, vivacidade, amor ao luxo, quentura, admiragao a d.
Mercedes. Foi dificil reunir essas coisas e muitas outras, formar com elas a
maquina que ia encontrar-me a noite, ao pe da mangueira. (67)+
This frail recomposition of Marina’s body does not stand, however, the test of the
real when Luis da Silva’s attempt to invest in the position of a low-capital social
agent through his marriage with Marina fails. He re-invests thus in a paratactical
perception of reality, which assumes the fetishistic form that is already at play in his
vision and division of Marina’s body, lending itself to the fixation of Luis da Silva’s
phantasms. For, if the satisfaction that Luis da Silva feels as he symbolically
dismembers Marina’s body is, as he explicitly states, a sexual pleasure, it is because
*
“The mad thought that Marina was divided occurred to me abruptly. Sawed in two while still alive
as formerly. This stupid and vindictive idea gave me great satisfaction. Buttocks and legs on one
side, head and trunk on the other. The lower parts wriggled like the mutilated tail of a lizard” (62).
* “Naturally I spent months constructing this Marina who lives inside of me, who is quite different
from the other, but who, nevertheless, is confused with her. Before I knew the girl with the yellow
hair, she appeared to me divided into a great quantity of pieces of woman, and sometimes the pieces
did not fit tightly and gave me the impression that my neighbour was disjointed. Now I fear that
others reading me will see what I saw, a succession of pieces and qualities: buttocks, thighs, arms,
uneasiness, vivacity, love of luxury, warmth, and admiration for Dona Mercedes. It was difficult to
combine these things and many others, to form with them the machine that met me nightly at the foot
of the mango tree” (71).
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the psychotic point of view he assumes affords his phantasmatic discourse a logic
that ultimately enables him, at least phantasmatically, to correct his devaluation.3 0
As Floriano Gon?alves notes, in Angustia “interior” time supplants
chronological time, in that action unfolds with the contribution of remote marks and
memories, in such a way that the real and the imaginary succeed one another; they
become conjugated and confounded (65). Action, in short, is frequently transposed
to the imaginary, where it unfolds, while, simultaneously, present time moves on.
This supplanting of the chronological time by the “interior” time constitutes, in fact,
the third plane of the narrative, that of Luis da Silva’s phantasmatic perception of
objective reality, that is, his “crispada visao subjetiva” [“crimped subjective view”]
(Candido, “Bichos” 80). When, as Candido observes, “o narrador [in Angustia] tudo
invade e incorpora a sua substantia, que transborda sobre o mundo,” the narrative
“rompe amarras com o mundo e se encaminha para o monologo de tonalidade
solipsista” (“Fic?ao” 40).*
In effect, Luis da Silva himself is constantly pointing out his difficulty in
relating to objective reality. Sometimes this difficulty stems from the fact that
phantasmatic and objective realities are confounded, as he notes in the very first
paragraph of his narrative: “Levantei-me ha cerca de trinta dias, mas julgo que ainda
nao me restabeleci completamente. Das visoes que me perseguiam naquelas noites
compridas umas sombras permanecem, sombras que se misturam a realidade e me
produzem calafrios” (7).* Sometimes he simply moves away from reality by means
of metonymical associations that displaces his narrative from objective to
*
When “the narrator [in Angustia! invades and incorporates everything into his substance, which
overflows onto the world,” the narrative “cuts its ties with the world and tends to a monologue with a
solipsistic tone.”
t
“Although it is almost a month since I got out of bed, I do not believe I have fully recovered yet. Of
the nightmares that pursued me during those long nights a few shadows still remain, shadows that
blend into reality and give me chills” (1).
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phantasmatic reality: he takes, for instance, the strikes of a clock in his dining
room to be the tolls of the church bells in the small town where he lived as a child
(22/17), or takes the direction of the street-car in which he rides (going west within
the city of Maceio) as the geographical position of his native municipality (west of
the city of Maceio). These metonymical associations, with their implied term of
comparison (the strikes of the clock sounded Uke the tolls of the bells), become,
within Luis da Silva’s phantasmatic discourse, condensed figures whose indistinction
is contradictorily resolved by means of the superposition of a fetishistically fixated
figure upon the others.3 1 In the beginning of his narrative, Luis da Silva notes twice
that his attempts to work and write are encumbered by the apparition of Juliao
Tavares:
Impossivel trabalhar. . . . Ate dez linhar vou bem. Dai em diante a cara balofa
de Juliao Tavares aparece em cima do original, e os meus dedos encontram no
teclado uma resistencia mole de came gorda. E la vem o erro. Tento veneer a
obsessao, capricho em nao usar a borracha. Concluo o trabalho, mas a resma
de papel fica muito reduzida. (7)
Nao consigo escrever. Dinheiro e propriedades, que me dao sempre desejos
violentos de mortandade e outras destmigoes, as duas colunas mal impressas,
caixilho, dr. Gouveia, Moises, homem da luz, negociantes, politicos, diretor e
secretario, tudo se move na minha cabepa, como um bando de vermes, em cima
de uma coisa amarela, gorda e mole que e, reparando-se bem, a cara balofa de
Juliao Tavares muito aumentada. (9 )t
Covering Luis da Silva’s manuscripts and lying underneath all the figures that
compose his phantasmatic discourse, Tavares’s face fixates the traumatic scene of
Luis da Silva’s social, economic, and symbolic dispossession, which is first clearly
“It is impossible to work.. . . For the first ten lines everything goes well. But then Juliao Tavares’s
flabby face appears above the paper, and my fingers meet a pulpy resistance like fat meat against the
keyboard. And now the errors start. I try to overcome the obsession, refuse to use the eraser. Finally,
I conclude the task, but the ream of paper is drastically reduced” (1-2).
^ “I can’t write. Money and property — the two words that always arouse in me a violent desire for
murder and destruction; the two badly printed columns, cash-box, Dr. Gouveia, Moyses . ..,
businessmen, police, editor, secretary, all whirl in my head like a swarm of maggots on top of a fat
squashed yellow object — the swollen face of Juliao Tavares, greatly enlarged” (3).
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enacted in the scene in which the creditors take away the family’s remaining
possessions and repeated in Marina’s expensive tastes and, finally, in Tavares’s
flirtation (and later affair) with Marina. As Candido points out, the “solidarity”
between Luis da Silva and all the other characters, who function as a projection of
the latter, “multiplicfa] em combina^oes infmdaveis o drama basico da frustragao”
(“Fic?ao” 36).*
This neurotic repetition of Luis da Silva’s drama may nevertheless operate in
an inverse mode and correct the devaluation that is symbolically and objectively
inscribed in the figure of Juliao Tavares. One would only have to be able to see
Tavares’s face underneath all other faces and to perceive, underneath his face, the
original, hidden text. Because it should have been devoid of all the errors that
Tavares’s face appears to obsessively inscribe in it, in this text should lie both the
“true” significance and the “true” signification of Juliao Tavares’s name. What Luis
da Silva does when he imagines that, if he were a cangaceiro. he would stamp on
Juliao Tavares’s face the names that define him, is precisely to write that text. Such
a tautological and fetishistic definition of one’s name and social value is made
possible by the psychotic occlusion, from the subject’s field of vision, of the social
logic of the processes through which agents form value.3 2
Within the social field, this psychotic occlusion may be misrecognized,
therefore losing its status of individual psychosis, precisely because of the
specularity constitutive of the social formation of value, as Luis da Silva’s fantasies
of literary production show:
Enquanto estou fumando, nu, as pemas estiradas, dao-se grandes revolugoes na
minhavida. Fame atacam, outros me defendem. O diretor olha-me com raiva, mas sei
*
“multiplies] in endless combinations the basic drama of frustration.”
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perfeitamente que aquilo e ciume e nao me incomodo. Vou crescer muito.
Quando o homem me repreender por causa da informa^o errada,
compreenderei que se zanga porque o meu livro e comentado nas cidades
grandes. E ouvirei as censuras resignado. Um sujeito me dira:
- Meus parabens, seu Silva. O senhor escreveu uma obra excelente. Esta
aqui a opiniao dos criticos.
- Muito obrigado, doutor.
Abro a tomeira, molho os pes. As vezes passo uma semana compondo
esse livro que vai ter grande exito e acaba traduzido em linguas distantes. Mas
isto me enerva. Ando no mundo da lua . . . . Para limitar-me as praticas
ordinarias, necessito esforgo enorme, e isto e doloroso. Nao consigo voltar a
ser o Luis da Silva de todos os dias .... Tento reprimir essas crises de
megalomania, luto desesperadamente para afasta-las. Nao me dao prazer:
excitam-me e abatem-me. (132-3)
In this fantasy, as in its repetition in Luis da Silva’s phantasmatic imprisonment, the
distinction with which Luis da Silva characterizes his book appears to oppose a
production of cultural goods that results from economic rather cultural capital. That
is what Luis da Silva sees in dr. Gouveia, whom he calls a “monster” for having paid
the publication of a literary piece, for having no ambitions, and for focusing solely
on the temporal, “a renda das propriedades e o cobre que o tesouro lhe pinga” (8).1
In opposing a cultural logic of production to a socio-economic one, Luis da Silva is
able to textually construct a sequence for the production of cultural goods that is
based not only on the notion of autonomy, but also on that of the intrinsic value of
“While I sit there [in the bathroom] smoking, naked and stretching my legs, great revolutions occur
in my life. I write a book, a notable book, a novel. The journals shout; some attack me, others defend
me. The manager glares at me angrily, but I know perfectly well he is envious, and this does not
disturb me. My fame increases. When the man rebukes me for some mistake, I shall realize he is
annoyed because my book is being discussed in the great cities. And I shall listen to his chidings
submissively. A fellow will say to me:
‘Congratulations, Seu Silva. The senhor wrote an excellent book. That is the opinion of the
critics. ’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
I open the faucet and wet my feet. Sometimes I spend a week composing that book which will
have a great success and end by being translated into foreign languages. But this enervates me. I
walk in a world of moonlight.. . . In order to limit myself to the ordinary practices, I make an
enourmous effort, and that is painful. I cannot return to be the same Luiz da Silva of every day. . . . I
try to repress these crises of megalomania, I struggle desperately to avert them. They do not give me
pleasure, they excite and deject me” (146-47).
“the rent from his properties, and the coins which plink into his cash-box” (3).
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works of art. For his book is, first and foremost, and in the very act of writing it,
a great work of art. The misrecognition of a socially construed value for an authentic
one is all the more powerful the more the rites of institution are also occluded from
the subject’s field of vision. Through this occlusion, the specularity constitutive of
the social formation of value may be misrecognized as a mere symbolic or economic
recognition of the authentic value of a work of art. That is what transpires in a
conversation between Luis da Silva and his boss, but now in relation to his own
social value:
Na vespera o diretor me tinha dito:
- Necessitamos um governo forte, seu Luis, um governo que estique a corda.
Esse povo anda de redea solta. Um governo duro.
E eu havia concordado, naturalmente.
- E o que eu digo, doutor. Um governo duro. E que reconheConsiderava-me um valor, valor miudo, uma especie de niquel social, mas
enfim valor. (37)
Given Luis da Silva’s tautological definition of essences, through which “a man is a
man” (43), and his neurotic determination of values, the recognition of values
becomes a repetition of an inherent value, which is already there, rather than the
social production of value. As an intrinsic value, even if a social penny, Luis da
Silva cannot be the phantasm that appears to him in his delirium.
“The evening before, the editor had said to me:
‘We need a strong government, Seu Luiz, a government that will tighten the reins. These people
walk around with loose bridles. A hard government.
And I agreed, naturally:
‘That is what I say, Doctor. A harsh government. A government that recognizes values. ’
I considered myself a value, a minute value, a sort of social nickel, but still a value” (36).
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131
Notes
1 The same idea of a “phantasmalization” of the subject appears before the
crime is committed, when Luis da Silva follows Juliao Tavares to a cafe where the
chief of police was also having his coffee. In the presence of the law enforcer, Luis
da Silva speculates about what would happen to him if he strangled Juliao Tavares
right there and then. He would certainly go to prison, but, he thinks, “[a] vida na
prisao nao seria pior que a que [ele] tinha” [“[ljife in prison would not be worse than
the life [he] led”] (155/173). Only one thing frightened him in that imaginary scene:
“Aquele bolor, aquele cheiro e aquela cor horriveis, aquela sombra que transforma as
pessoas em sombras, os movimentos vagarosos de almas do outro mundo,
aparoravam-me” [“That horrible mould, smell, and colour, that shadow which
transforms people into apparitions, the slow ghostly movements, terrified
me”] (155-56/173).
It also reappears after the assassination of Juliao Tavares, when Luis da Silva
says to himself: Luis da Silva, Juliao Tavares, isso nao vale nada. Sujeitos uteis
morrem de morte violenta ou acabam-se nas prisoes. Nao faz mal que voces
desaparegam. Propriamente, voces nunca viveram” [‘“Luis da Silva, Juliao Tavares,
all this is unimportant. Useful people die violent deaths or end up in prison. It will
do no harm if you [two] disappear. Because, properly speaking, you have never
lived”] (197/221).
2 The surname “Silva” is quite common in Brazil and is usually associated,
within the social field as a whole, with low-capital agents. The name “Luis da Silva”
roughly corresponds to the English “John Smith” or even, given the narrator’s
decription of his monotonous life as a nine-to-five worker, to a “John Doe.”
3 The same dichotomy between the symbolic distance/proximity to the
“natural” underscores the definition of the rural men in relation to the urban men. As
Sonia Brayner points out, Luis da Silva is a character not only situated between two
worlds, the rural and the urban, but also unable to identify with either milieu
(“Graciliano Ramos” 209). This incapacity to fully identify with either environment
is an index of the ambiguous social position he occupies. For he is not only a city
dweller whose roots are in the “sertao,” but also one who phantasmatically invests in
a social position he can no longer occupy (that of the landowner) without completely
taking up the position open to him — that of the working-class (as Malard notes, Luis
da Silva is incapable of adjusting to either the dominant or the dominated classes
[22]). Due to his ambiguous position, animality and the dichotomy between the
symbolic distance/proximity to the “natural” will also function ambiguously,
indicating alternatively or sometimes simultaneously his distance from or his
proximity to the urban/rural environment and/or the dominant/dominated classes.
Such an ambiguity is inscribed in the sociolect he uses as well, in the form of a
coarseness or an uneuphemized language, which can be attributed to the “rudeness”
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132
(i.e., the immediacy) constitutive of both his rural background and of his
low-class status.
4 See also, concerning the animalization of Luis da Silva, his way of bathing
in the rain, just like the farm’s animals (15/10), or the analogies between his sexual
conduct and that of animals (57/59; 98/106-107). This animalization of sexuality is
recurrent in Luis da Silva’s description of many other characters in his narrative (see,
for example, the portrayal of the girl in the Cavalo-Morto [36/35], of Antonia,
Rosalia’s maid [54/55], ofMarina [89/97], and ofRosalia, Luis da Silva’s neighbor,
and her husband [101-106/109-115]). They do not, however, have the same function
within Luis da Silva’s discourse. The first two descriptions operate within the
dichotomy rural/urban, whereas the last two reinforce Luis da Silva’s closeness to
the lower classes, that is, his devaluation in comparison with his father and, above
all, with his grandfather.
5 Postures similar to the ones Luis da Silva adopts are to be found in relation
to other low-capital social agents: Moises, a Marxist friend of Luis da Silva’s,
becomes mute in Juliao Tavares’s presence (49/49) or silences, disappears, hides
before the chief of police (25/21); Marina, after the abortion, shrinks back (174/195),
and her voice dies away before Luis da Silva (177/197); her eyes also look down,
avoiding other eyes (183/205); d. Adelia, Marina’s mother, “[e]stava mole,
encolhida, machucada, e habituara-se a falar cochichando e a baixar a cabega diante
de toda gente” [“became soft, timid, crushed, became accustomed to speak in
whispers and lower her head before everyone”] (110/120); seu Ramalho, the father,
“[f]alava de cabega baixa, os olhos no chao, os musculos da cara imoveis, a boca
entreaberta, a voz branda, provavelmente pelo habito de obedecer” [“fixed his eyes
on the gound, his head lowered, the muscles of his face motionless. His voice was
very low, propably from his habit of obeying”] (53/54-55); seu Evaristo, an old man
who cannot work for a living and hence committs suicide, bends his body forward,
with his legs, and backward, with his chest (150/167).
6 These (phantasmatic) situations are, regarding the first instance of touching
the dead body, Juliao Tavares’s friends’ judgment of him, the extensive news
coverage of the incident, Pimentel’s writing of a horrible newspaper article, and Luis
da Silva’s quarrel with Pimentel and, regarding the second instance, the persecution
that Luis da Silva’s numerous enemies would subject him to.
7 For the description of Cirilo de Engracia see pages 174-76/196 and
187/209; as for the episode of seu Evaristo, see pages 150-53/166-69. In comparing
the assassination of Juliao Tavares with the deaths of Cirilo de Engracia and seu
Ribeiro, one sees that it does constitute a reversal of roles (although not of social
positions), since the high-capital agent, not the low-capital one, is the one who is
turned into the punished subject.
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133
8 One should here bear in mind that the phantasmalization of the
imprisoned subject, which Luis da Silva fantasizes (see note 1), is partly due to the
objectification of the prisoner’s body, which draws it close to the dead bodies Luis
da Silva evokes in his narrative.
9 The phantasmatic scene in which Luis da Silva is married to Marina is
similar to the ones in which Joao Valerio, from Caetes. imagines himself married to
Luisa and then to Marta. It is equally constituted by several indexes of a high degree
of accumulation of capital: the bucolic leisure of the scene; the geographical (but
also symbolic) location of their home, overlooking the city and therefore creating a
distance (and also the sense of an outsider who may thereby gain “this pleasure of
‘seeing the whole,’ of looking down on, totalizing” [de Certeau 92]) between their
domestic, private life and the public, massified space of the ‘city;’ the family’s
possessions.
1 0 The symbolic self-valorization/devaluation is, in other words, objectified in
Marina’s practical insistence on the idea that Luis da Silva did not possess enough
economic capital to marry her. When Luis da Silva asks Marina to dictate to him the
last goods he should buy, she mentions “coisas absurdas, com um risinho ruim, e
[ele] percebeu nela a inten^o perversa de [lhe] humilhar” [“some ridiculous things
with a perverse smile, and [he] could see that she was maliciously bent on
humiliating [him]”] (84/91). Later, this objectification of the symbolic self
valorization/devaluation will be repeated when Marina starts a relationship with
Juliao Tavares.
1 1 Jose Bleger points out a psychoanalytical distinction between ambiguity
and ambivalence. In the first case, “nada es afirmado ni negado totalmente”
[“nothing is completely affirmed or denied”] (171), since the subject perceives
neither a contradiction nor a conflict between different terms that coexist rather than
exclude each other (167-68). In ambivalence, on the other hand, two antinomic
terms are conflated, at the same time, into one single object, and the subject
experiences the contradiction implicit in such a conflation (167). Drawing on this
psychoanalytical distinction between ambiguity and ambivalence, one might say that
both Joao Valerio and Luis da Silva occcupy ambiguous social positions.
Nonetheless, only Joao Valerio appears to move from ambiguity to ambivalence,
when he notes that he cannot marry a married woman and finally conflates the social
position in which he had been phantasmatically investing — that of a high-capital
agent, a proprietor — with the one he objectively occupies — that of a
propertyless low-capital agent.
121 am assuming here that the analogy between a flabby bodily structure and
a dominant social position is part of Luis da Silva’s own discourse, rather than a sign
Juliao Tavares produces in his symbolization of his social position, since I find
no indication to the contrary.
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134
1 3 For a discussion of symbolic power and linguistic forms, see
Bourdieu’s first two chapters in Language and Symbolic Power.
1 4 In his dictionary, Aurelio Buarque de Hollanda (Ferreira) lists the
following meanings for the adjective “vao”: “vazio; sem valor; futil; ineficaz;
fantastico; ffivolo; vanglorioso; falso; oco ” All of these adjectives compose,
together, a very fine portrait not only of Juliao Tavares, in Luis da Silva’s eyes, but
also of the social figures of the “bacharel” and the Parnassian poets and their
belletrism, in the eyes of Brazilian intellectuals of early to mid-twentieth century.
1 5 In Portuguese, “rostos” means at the same time “faces” (which, in the
context of Luis da Silva’s narrative, might be those of the authors) and “title pages.”
Although the “rostos” Luis da Silva mentions most likely refer to the title pages of
the books being displayed (in effect, it is costumary in Brazil to write the price of a
book on its title page, as Luis da Silva notes), it may also, by displacement, be
referring to the “faces” of those authors whose books are on display, since Luis da
Silva perceives them as selling themselves, not their books (the first meaning of
“rostos” — “faces”— is the one Kaplan chooses in his translation).
1 6 Although, according to the sexualized dichotomy of gender roles, women
are most often associated with the theatricality of fashion, men also engage in it,
even if “discreetly.” Thus, Luis da Silva also fantasizes that Juliao Tavares was
wearing a tuxedo and that “na camisa branca, sem uma dobra, as pedras dos botoes
faiscavam, no dedo grosso o rubi faiscava, a gola do smoking faiscava” [“the stones
in the buttonholes of his uncrumpled white shirt flashed, the ruby sparked on his fat
thumb, the collar of his tuxedo scintillated”] (121/134).
17
One should here make a distinction between a social and an aesthetic
consumption of cultural products, the first consisting of a cultural appreciation that
cannot be dissociated from the social event through which both the cultural
consumption and the production of social and symbolic capital take place, and the
second, of a “purely” aesthetic appreciation of a work of art. In observing the social
consumption of cultural products from an aesthetic point of view, social agents may
cynically or neurotically note how the work of art becomes, by means of social
consumption, a “mere pretext” for the production of social and symbolic capital,
hence misrecognizing what is a practical sense for an intentional act.
1 8 According to Marx, “the [bourgeois] economists also had to contend
against the popular prejudice which confuses capitalist production with hoarding,
and therefore imagines that accumulated wealth is either wealth that is rescued from
destruction in its existing natural form, i.e. withdrawn from consumption, or wealth
that does not enter into circulation. The exclusion of money from circulation would
constitute precisely the opposite of its valorization as capital, and the accumulation
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135
of commodities in the sense of hoarding them would be sheer foolishness”
(Capital 735).
1 9 As Marx observes, “[t]he antagonism between the power of landed
property, based on personal relations of domination and servitude, and the power of
money, which is impersonal, is clearly expressed by the two French proverbs, ‘Nulle
terre sans seigneur’ [‘No land without its lord’], and ‘L’argent n’a pas de maitre’
[‘Money has no master’]” (Capital 247, n. 1).
2 0 According to Victor Nunes Leal, “coronelismo” presupposes precisely the
waning of the influence of the private power over the political sphere -- an influence
that is the most forceful with the patriarcal landowner of the Colony — and functions
as a form of conservation of its residual content (251-52).
2 1 “Mandonismo” is defined as a personal and arbitrary form of domination
that a social agent, given his possession of fundamental resources (usually the land),
exerts over others, hampering their free access to the market and to the political
sphere (Carvalho, Jose Murilo de 133).
2 2 Although there is no indication in Ramos’s novel, I am assuming that the
people Trajano gathers in the village to break into the jail are part of his “parentela,”
given that Luis da Silva’s grandfather displays all the characteristics of the
landowners who integrated the system of relations called “coronelismo.”
2 3 This physical inscription of the law opposes the abstract impersonalism of
the juridical system that helped to dismantle the system of “coronelismo.” If, on the
one hand, Trajano is able to materialize his power by means of a violent use of the
physical world despite the decisions of a judge (that is, of a representative of the
social order), Luis da Silva, on the other hand, is caught within that opposition.
Thus, he not only fantasizes, after he assassinates Juliao Tavares, that he is powerless
in relation to the juridical system (a powerlessness that is aggravated by the fact that
he occupies a low-capital social position) (202-203/226-28), but also that Jose Baia,
his grandfather’s “jagungo” [a hitman], became “uma inutilidade feita pela justiga”
[“something made useless by justice”] (189/212).
2 4 As Lucia Helena Carvalho notes, the question of legitimacy within Luis da
Silva’s narrative cannot be dissociated from that of a usurpation of power (70).
Nonetheless, I would like to point out, in reconstructing the opposition between the
logic of “money begets money” and that of personalism, that the question of
legitimacy also constitutes a struggle over the legitimate point of view from which
agents perceive the social world, thereby performing a symbolic division of the
social space. In affording agents the different logics supporting their interventions in
the social world, points of view partake of the social construction of the world.
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136
2 5 As Lucia Helena Carvalho notes, Luis da Silva often incorporates into
his narrative the figures of “jagungos” and “cangaceiros” (39-44). His identification
with these figures also partakes of Luis da Silva’s reconstruction of the logic of
personalism, given that both figures must be understood in relation to the system of
“coronelismo”: the first ones, because they socially function, in accordance with the
indistinct bodies that are characteristic of personalism, as the “brago executor”
[“executing arm”] of the “coroneis,” who are the “mandatariofs]” (Queiroz 120), that
is, the ones who order that a “crime” be committed (see, for example, the relation
between Jose Baia, whom Luis da Silva calls his brother, and Trajano [142/157-58]);
the second ones, because they simply gain a relative independence from the
“coroneis,” putting into practice the same physical inscription of the law.
2 6 Luis da Silva states that he never studied and that he is ignorant (45/44).
From the personal trajectory that one may reconstruct from his narrative, it seems
that he never had any formal education besides what he learned with seu Antonio
Justino, most likely a teacher with no formal education himself, who passed on to his
pupils the little that he knew: “leitura, o catecismo, a conjugagao dos verbos”
[“reading, the catechism, and how to conjugate verbs”] (13/8). Likewise, Luis da
Silva would work as a “mestre de meninos” [“tutor”], wandering from farm to farm,
as he notes: “Quando ensinava tudo que seu Justino me ensinara, passava a outra
escola” [“When I had taught everything that Seu Antonio Justino had taught me, I
moved to another school”] (26/23). If this is correct, the cultural capital that Luis da
Silva is later able to accumulate is the result of non-formal, independent investments.
2 7 When social agents are able to produce, through authorship, what Foucault
calls “the possibilities and the rules for the formation of other texts,” which he limits,
debatably, to those he names the “founders of discursivity” (“What Is an Author?”
154), authorship has reached its most profitable stage. For it ceases to be a personal
investment and becomes a group investment in which the capital inscribed in the
name of the author is shared by several different investors. Thus, the more investors
you have and the more capital these investors produce under that name, the more
capital is credited to the name of the author.
28
When Luis da Silva mentions the “tempo da metrica e da rima” [“those
times of rhymed, metrical verses;” translation mine], he is clearly referring to the
period before the Semana de Arte Modema [“Week of Modem Art”] in 1922, a
period in which Parnassianism was arguably the legitimate poetic point of view
within the Brazilian literary field.
29
Several critics have observed that this ambiguous identification with the
lower classes is related to the social position of intellectuals. For Malard,
intellectuals are, given the very contradictions of a capitalist society, unable to
conform to any one class in particular (22; 148, n. 15). For Brayner, Luis da Silva,
as an intellectual, is faced with the contradiction of the privilege resulting from the
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137
cultural values that structure his social position: a moral and intellectual
conscience of the necessity to take up a socio-political role associated with the
awareness that he is at the same time unable to act and distanced from the people
(213-14). For Lucia Helena Carvalho, the antithesis between “brother” and
“stranger,” both of which terms Luis da Silva uses in characterizing Jose Baia, points
to “uma contradigao ideologica que irmana uma geragao de intelectuais brasileiros e
que nos faz lembrar um projeto de fratemidade igualmente frustrado, inscrito no
texto maior de nossa literatura” [“an ideological contradiction that unites a
generation of Brazilian intellectuals and which reminds us of an equally frustrated
project of fraternity, a
project that is inscribed in the larger context of our literature”] (43).
3 0 Luis da Silva’s fetishistic pleasure may be comprehended within the
phantasmatic discourse that structures the division of Marina’s body into bottom and
top, sexual and non-sexual parts. For it allows for a fixation of either parts and
hence for a fetishistic definition of Marina as either the sexual woman, which
ultimately becomes Luis da Silva’s definition of Marina, or the non-sexual woman,
with whom he says he should marry: “Casar ou amigar-me com uma criatura sensata,
amante da ordem. Nada de melindrosas pintadas. Mulher direita, sisuda” [“I could
even marry. Or find a mistress, some sensible creature who was a lover of order.
None of these prim painted dolls. An honest woman with common sense”] (38/37).
Such a woman is phantasmatically constructed in the figure of the typist (97/104-
105).
3 1 In Anibal M. Machado’s “O rato, o guarda-civil e o transatlantico” [“The
Rat, the Policeman, and the Ocean Liner”] the derangement of the protagonist is
marked precisely by his gradual inability to establish comparisons, whose differential
distance between objects, subjects, or phenomena is supplanted by the
indifferentiation of identities. In the case of Luis da Silva, his inability to
differentiate leads him, in the scene in which he recounts to Moises the story of his
grandfather’s material power (see pages 73-74), to conflate the euphemized symbolic
power that his boss wields over him with the physical violence that his grandfather
exercised. Only by overlooking constitutive differences can Luis da Silva also
perceive the life he leads as bad as (or perhaps even worse than) life in prison.
3 2 The indignation with the others’ blindness before the tautological
definition and the neurotic value, which the subject deems to be self-evident, may be
articulated in the question “How could you not see that he is worthless and his
words, meaningless?” — a question that, in expressing the subject’s astonishment,
might be associated with Luis da Silva’s discourse.
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4. Under the Spell of an “I”: Phantasms of Apparent Disappearance
138
And the reality o f [exile] consists of an exiled writer constantly lighting and
conspiring to restore his significance, his poignant role, his authority.
Joseph Brodsky, “The Condition We Call Exile” (1991).
Augusto Roa Bastos’s novel Yo. el supremo (1974) has often been classified
as one of the many “novelas de la dictadura” [“dictatorship novels”] that appeared in
Latin America (but also in Spain) throughout the twentieth century.' The reason for
such a classification is quite simple and evident in the very text of the novel. In
opening the book, the first line one reads is “Yo el Supremo Dictador de la
Republica” (7).* Although Roa Bastos himself has pointed out that “dictator” should
not be understood here in its contemporary signification, but rather in the sense of a
Roman dictator, that is, a magistrate with supreme authority and appointed in times
of emergency, Roa Bastos’s text, because of the historical context in which the novel
was published and which resonates in it, does lend itself to such an anachronistic
2
reading. Not only was the novel published in the mid 1970s, when the governments
of the Southern Cone countries were turning into dictatorial military regimes, but the
very figure of El Supremo alludes at times to that of Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay’s
ruler from 1954 to 1989.
Such allusions and the references to contemporary dictatorships are
particularly important to two of the figures we read within and around the novel: the
compiler and the author.3 For both the compiler and the author, the figure of El
Supremo Dictador cannot be thought independently of the “recuperation” of
Francia’s image, which, as Georges Foumial observes in commenting the novel
* “I the Supreme Dictator of the Republic” (3).
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139
('Seminario 44), Stroessner’s government attempted to realize. In fact, in his
“Appendix” to the novel, the compiler gathers different texts in which historians
respond to the Paraguayan government’s attempt to recover, in 1961, “io s restos
mortales del Supremo Dictador y restituir al patrimonio nacional estas sagradas
reliquias”’ (603).* Since Stroessner’s political party, the Colorado, had taken
Francia and the Lopezes as the founders of Paraguay as an independent nation,
Stroessner’s political cornerstones often coincide with those of El Supremo.4 As a
result, El Supremo’s image becomes tinted, for contemporary readers of the
compilation called Yo. el supremo, with that of Stroessner, and in more than one
sense.5 In the final note with which the novel ends, the compiler provides us with a
definition of dictators, which might be applied to both nineteenth and twentieth-
century dictators, to dictators in both the classical and modem senses of the term.
According to the compiler, “los dictadores cumplem precisamente esta funcion:
reemplazar a los escritores, historiadores, artistas, pensadores, etc.” (620). ' And the
more absent, non-existent, or phantasmatic are these writers, historians, artists, or
thinkers, the easier is that replacement.
In this chapter, I pursue the proliferation of phantasms in relation to the
dictator’s power and the re-establishment of the author’s authority in Yo. el supremo.
In order to do so, I follow four phantasms and four modes of production of
phantasms, or phantasmalization, within the novel. In the first section of this
chapter, I examine the question of political investiture in relation to El Supremo and
his power, as the absolute political representative, to turn words into deeds, which
the decree with which the novel begins evinces. Since El Supremo is the founder of
* “the mortal remains of the Supreme Dictator and to restore these sacred relics to the national
patrimony” (translation mine).
' “dictators fulfill precisely this function: replacing writers, historians, artists, thinkers, etc.” (435).
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140
a republic, the delegated power that political investiture affords him must of
necessity come from the people and the representativity that relates the Dictator to
his people. Nonetheless, what the false decree also indicates is that the Dictator’s
power may be contested and even successfully usurped, as long as that usurper
possesses the necessary qualifications to do so. As we shall see, Francia himself had
laboriously cultivated his own self as that of a qualified candidate for the position of
Supreme Dictator, but he is, in turn, haunted by the phantasm of deposition. In order
to maintain himself in power, El Supremo recurs to different practices that are
available to a dictator: executions, torture, and imprisonment. I thus analyze, at the
end of this first section, the socio-political phantasms that result from the practices
that political investiture affords the dictator.
In the second section, I examine the phantasmalization that political praxis
produces, despite the political insistence on the reality of politics, by means of a
symbolization of the political figure and the State. As we shall see, this
symbolization is the result of a disjunction between the Dictator’s person and his
public figure, which El Supremo himself perceives in establishing a distinction
between “I” and “He,” and it must be objectified in the social world, so that it may
become visible. For El Supremo, the symbolization of power also becomes tactics
and military strategies that he uses in his struggles for power. One should not
conclude, however, that El Supremo is hospitable to the existence and construction
of phantasms, for he too becomes, against his will, a sort of fantastic image before
the public eye. As such, El Supremo shares with fictional characters their unreal
existence. Since symbolization is a social act, it turns out to be a chaotic chain of
acts of symbolization, which haunt El Supremo.
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141
As I demonstrate in the third section, El Supremo is a subject haunted by
this chaotic nature of symbolization, which might ultimately transform the Supreme
Dictator into what he perceives to be one of the lowest forms of being, a phantasm
among other phantasms. He is, in other words, haunted by the phantasm of
phantasmalization that he, as a Dictator, had produced, and I shall analyze, as
examples, his fear of the feminine as a fear of supreme impotence and, finally, his
fear of substitutions, both political and linguistic. In the last section, I examine how
the compiler, himself a sequestered body, is haunted by the power that dictators
exert, therefore choosing to become a mere compiler rather than an author,
apparently disappearing from the text in the compiler’s final note. As we shall see in
the last part of this chapter, such a disappearance is, however, an apparent one, for
the author and his authority reappear in Roa Bastos’s text by means of a dislocation
of authors, in which Borges plays a central role. This dislocation occurs within what
one might call, metaphorically, the perpetual circular that characterizes the social
web of relations among agents and their phantasms and through which the apparently
disappearing author begins to reappear within the text.
4.1. Sequestered Bodies, Or the Phantasms of Investiture
It is impossible to read Yo. el supremo and not perceive the Dictator’s
frequent invectives against his apparently long list of adversaries, a list that begins
with the anonymous authors of the false decree with which Roa Bastos opens the
novel and that increases vertiginously as the narration proceeds. For El Supremo, his
opponents are “ratas unudas grenudas” (8), “falsarios” (8), “sicofantes rencillosos”
(8), “desalmados calumniadores” (10), a “deslenguado palabrero” (32), “cretinos
sabihondos” (33), a “plaga de letricidas peores que las langostas” (36), a “charlatan
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142
mas desaforado del mundo” (42), a “compilador de embustes y falsificaciones”
(43), “convulsionarios engreidos, viciosos, ineptos” (47), “remendones de embustes,
de falsedades” (96), “mentirosos, falsarios y clnicos” (164), “plumlferos de toda
laya. Corrompidos corruptores. Yagos. Malentretenidos. Truhanes mfianes de la
letra escrita” (94),* and so forth. Although a list of the invectives El Supremo uses to
qualifiy his opponents could only be retraced in its entirety by means of an
exhaustive enumeration that would ultimately parallel the Dictator’s paranoid
absolutism, the brief sample I have provided suggests a certain redundancy.
As if, in opening the book, one had also opened someone’s private Pandora’s
box, one gradually discovers that the illnesses, the phantasms of this “I” that the text
of the novel announces from its very beginning, both in the title and its first sentence,
are variations, perhaps projections of the novel’s primary scene. A group of
grenadiers finds a false decree at the door of the cathedral, bearing El Supremo’s
signature as well as his political title, “Yo el Supremo Dictador de la Republica”
(7).* To a greater or lesser degree, all of El Supremo’s invectives will involve both
the question of falsehood in relation to the act of writing and describing reality and
the extent to which linguistic production may be translated into physical acts and
objective reality. One must not forget, after all, that the first text one reads in Yo. el
supremo is a decree, supposedly signed by the highest political representative of the
nation. Had that decree been an authoritative text, actually dictated (or written) and
signed by El Supremo, he would have been decapitated after his death, his head
* “rats with tangled dangling locks and foot-long fingernails” (4), “forgers” (4), “cantankerous
sycophants” (4), “pitiless, inhuman slanderers” (5), “insolent windbag” (22), “know-it-all cretins”
(22), “plague o f letricides worse than locusts” (24), “the most conniving chatterbox in the world” (28),
“compiler of fictions and falsifications” (29), “vainglorious, vicious, vice-ridden convulsionaries”
(3 2), “menders of lies and benders o f truths” (67), “liars, false witnesses, and cynics” (116),
“penpushers of every breed. Corrupted corrupters. Vagrants. Scroungers. Ruffians, cheats and
crooks o f the written word” (66).
t “I the Supreme Dictator o f the Republic” (3).
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143
would have been displayed publicly on a pike for three days, his military and
civil servants would have been buried with neither cross nor name, and his body
would finally have been cremated and his ashes thrown into the Paraguay river (7).
In his different narratives, El Supremo will repeatedly refer to the
performative nature of the political word (both oral and written), opposing the power
that political texts have to make reality to the impotence and the falsifications of
either fictional or historical accounts. For the Dictator, “[d]ecir, escribir algo no
tiene ningun sentido. Obrar si lo tiene” (289);* and he adds:
La mas innoble pedorreta del ultimo mulato que trabaja en el astillero, en las
canteras de granito, en las minas de cal, en la fabrica de polvora, tiene mas
significado que el lenguaje escriturario, literario. Ahi, eso, un gesto, el
movimiento de un ojo, una escupida entre las manos antes de volver a empunar la
azuela jeso, significa algo muy concreto, muy real! ^Que signification puede
tener en cambio la escritura cuando por definition no tiene el mismo sentido que
el habla cotidiana hablada por la gente comun? (289)^
Insisting on the value of concrete acts in comparison to the insignificance of writing,
which can only forge a symbolic world, El Supremo’s comprehension of the relation
between language and objective reality is mediated by political praxis. As the
nation’s Dictator, El Supremo understands that unrealized ideas are dead ideas (302)
and that, even if one may mistrust someone else’s words, facts always guarantee the
exactness of a speaker’s discernment of reality (301). As El Supremo points out in
his dialogue with the emissaries from Buenos Aires, written texts can be falsified,
but not facts:
* “To say, to write something has no meaning whatsoever. To act does” [translation mine].
1 “The crudest little fart o f the humblest mulatto who works in the shipyards, in the granite quarries, in
the lime mines, in the gunpowder factory has more meaning than scriptorial, literary language. There,
that, a gesture, the movement o f an eye, spitting in the palms of the hands before grabbing the adze
again: that means something very concrete, very real! What meaning can writing have, on the other
hand, when by definition it does not have the same sense as the everyday speech o f ordinary people?”
(202).
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Ya es bien triste que nos veamos reducidos a envasar en palabras, notas,
documentos, contradocumentos, nuestros acuerdos-desacuerdos. Encerrar
hechos de naturaleza en signos de contranatura. Los papeles pueden ser rotos.
Leidos con segundas, hasta con terceras y cuartas intenciones. Millones de
sentidos. Pueden ser olvidados. Falsificados. Robados. Pisoteados. Los hechos
no. Estan ahi. Son mas fuertes que la palabra. Tienen vida propia.
Atengamonos a los hechos. (301)*
Facts are stronger than words, says El supremo, but not only because they resist
falsifications, but also because the very concreteness of facts and their direct
intervention or participation in social reality may be the result of violent acts.
For El Supremo, there is no doubt as to which “punto,” that of writing or
firing, wields more power.5 He says:
Mas en la letra diuma como en la noctuma la palabra sola sirve solo para lo que
no sirve. 6Para que sirven los pasquines? [Perversion la mas vergonzante del uso
de la escritura! ^Para que el trabajo de arana de los pasquinistas? Escriben.
Copian. Garrapatean. Se amanceban con la palabra infame. Se lanzan por el
talud de la infamia. De repente el punto. Sacudida mortal de la parrafada.
Quietud subita del alud parrafal, de la salud de los pasquinistas. No el punto de
tinta; el punto producido por un cartucho a bala en el pecho de los enemigos de la
Patria es lo que cuenta. No admite replica. Suena. Cumple. (8 8 /
But what exactly does the bullet that has the power to silence someone’s voice carry
out or execute? What is absent in El Supremo’s narrative is the order — Fire!
which, because of a network of delegated powers, executes El Supremo’s order, an
order that has been suppressed in the text, but which the reader may reconstruct
within the context of the novel: “Yo, el Supremo Dictador de la Republica, ordeno
“It is quite sad enough to see ourselves reduced to bottling up our own accords-disaccords in words,
notes, documents, counter-documents. Locking up facts of nature within signs against nature. Papers
can be tom up. Can be read between the lines, and even between the lines between the lines. Millions
o f meanings. They can be forgotten. Falsified. Stolen. Trampled on. Not facts. They are there.
They speak louder than words” (210).
1 “But in the diurnal hand as in the nocturnal the lone word is o f no use except for what is useless. Of
what use are pasquinades? The most shameful perversion of the use of writing! What’s the point in
the spiderwork that pasquinades weave? They write. Copy. Scribble. Sudden full stop. Death blow
to their logorrhea. The avalanche o f words meeting with a sudden quiet, the wordmongers with a
sudden quietus. Not the frill stop of a dot o f black ink; the tine black hole produced by a rifle
cartridge in the breast of the enemies of the Fatherland is what counts. It admits of no reply. It rings
out. The end. Finis” (61-62).
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que...”* Inasmuch as political texts may be translated into violent acts, their
falsification may produce, from a political point of view, much wider effects than the
distortion of facts that historical or fictional representations may cause. Nonetheless,
precisely because they are produced within a structured field, their falsification is
much more problematic than their writing might suggest.
As the inauthenticity of the decree in Yo. el supremo indicates, the power of
translating words into the actions they describe is based on a delegation of power
that is ultimately inscribed in the name of the representative, allowing him to make
7
use of the necessary apparatuses to afford political texts with the force of law. If
everyone, as a speaker, may use the pronoun “I” in order to identify and to insert
oneself within one’s discourse, not everyone can say “Yo, el supremo” and decree
someone’s death or imprisonment, as El Supremo often does throughout the novel.
For, in so doing, such a speaker would necessarily be usurping the power that has
been delegated to the political representative. In the conditional formula “if I were
El Supremo,” which the ex-minister Benitez apparently used in a conversation with
the Dictator’s scribe (330), is implicit a practical knowledge of the social conditions
necessary for a speaker to utter such a statement with authority.
For an Enlightened Dictator who was attempting to found a new, independent
republic according to the model of the French Revolution, such an authority could
only come from political representativity. In perceiving “[la] voluntad soberana del
pueblo”1 as “[la] fuente del Poder Absoluto, del absolutamente poder” (58-59),1 El
Supremo cannot but recognize that he has been invested of Absolute Power (58).
For him, his own will “representa y obra por delegation la incontrastable voluntad de
“I the Supreme Dictator of the Republic order that...”
' “the sovereign will of the people” (40).
1 “[the] source of Absolute Power, of Absolute Being-Able” (40).
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un pueblo libre, independiente y soberano” (322).* An investiture, however, does
not mean solely a sort of transference of power, but it also “consists of sanctioning
and sanctifying a difference (pre-existent or not) by making it known and
recognized:” it “exercises a symbolic efficacy that is quite real in that it really
transforms the person consecrated” (Bourdieu, Language 119). As Bourdieu points
out, investitures transform the representations that the subject and others have of the
consecrated person as well as the behaviors that this person must now adopt in
accordance with the title with which he has been invested (119). When narrating the
episodes that led to his appointment as Supreme Dictator, El Supremo states that, on
his way to the Casa de Gobierno [Presidential Palace], he was followed by “un
creciente gentio que vitoreaba [su] nombre” (236). f At this point, he says, he was
made into another man (236), a man who is the only slave left in the country,
inasmuch as he is at the service of those whom he dominates (59). A man without a
private life, a private identity, the Supreme Dictator must become one with the
people he represents, as Patino, the Dictator’s script, attests in his reproduction of El
Supremo’s discourse (50). Oneness between representatives and those represented
is, in fact, what constitutes the political body. In his own lungs, says El Supremo,
“respira un cuerpo politico, el Estado. El pais entero respira por los pulmones de
EL/YO” (160),J which means that El Supremo not only represents the people and the
State, but that he embodies them. In El Supremo’s physical, biological body lies also
the State’s “cuerpo material” (165).§
* “represents and realizes by delegation the invincible w ill of a free, independent, and sovereign
people” (224).
' “a growing crowd acclaiming [his] name” (164).
1 “breathes a political body, the State. HE/I: it is our lungs that the entire country breathes through”
(113).
§ “material body” (translation mine).
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Contradictorily enough, the difference that an investiture institutes
between a representative and those represented is due precisely to an identity
between the political representative and the people, the State, or the nation, as in the
case of the Supreme Dictator. In identifying with those whom (or with that which)
he represents, El Supremo sees himself (and wishes others to see him) in the position
of a father in relation to the people. In the first “circular perpetua” [“perpetual
circular”], El Supremo declares to the authorities composing his government that he
is not only the Supreme Head of the State, but also their “padre natural” [“natural
father”] (47/32). In this political family of sorts, in which the Dictator is the father,
the nation is the mother, and the people, their children, El Supremo takes upon
himself the task of raising his “children,” as if, just like a father, he could use his
own experience to instruct his progeny on the ways of a national life: “Como quien
sabe todo lo que se ha de saber y mas, les ire instruyendo sobre lo que deben hacer
para seguir adelante. Con ordenes si, mas tambien con los conocimientos que les
faltan sobre el origen, sobre el destino de nuestra Nation” (47-48).* Whereas, in his
educational role, El Supremo must act as a conductor (see, for example, his idea that
he should guide his subordinates to the position of great bosses and great civil
servants [531]), in his fatherly love, El Supremo must also assume the role of the
g
guardian, as his association with the pelican in Heroe’s story evinces. In hearing
that “[e]l pelicano ama a sus hijos. Si los encuentra en el nido mordidos por las
serpientes, se abre el pecho a picotazos. Los bana con su sangre. Los vuelve a la
vida,”^ El Supremo asks: “No soy Yo en el Paraguay el Supremo Pelicano?” (184).*
* “As someone who knows everything there is to know and more, I shall continue to instruct you as to
what you must do in order to pursue your task. I shall give you orders, but also the knowledge that
you lack as to the origin, the destiny o f our Nation” (32).
1 “The pelican loves its offspring. If it comes back to the nest and finds that they have been bitten by
snakes, it tears its breast open with its beak. It washes them in its blood. It restores them to life”
(130).
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What this story also tells us is that, in becoming the guardian of his “children,” El
Supremo may also turn into a savior who, in his “afan de sacar al Paraguay de la
infelicidadd, del abatimiento, de la miseria en que ha estado sumido por tres siglos”
(507)/ ends up as an omnipresent figure who takes it upon himself all the tasks that
the social body, in its amalgam of different, competing social agents, groups, and
9
classes, should perform (507-509).
In his eagerness to found the independent nation, El Supremo’s love and his
omnipresent figure might be suffocating to his citizens and stifle civil life, as the dog
Heroe points out after El Supremo’s comparison with the pelican: “Vuencencia ama
tanto a sus hijos como la pelicano-madre; los acaricia con tanto fervor que los mata”
(184-85)/ In effect, other accounts of the people’s dissatisfaction with his
government had already reached El Supremo’s ears. He confesses, for instance, in
one of his “perpetual circulars”: “Un pasquin me acusa en estos dias de que el pueblo
ha perdido su confianza, que ya esta harto de mi; cansado hasta mas no poder; que yo
solo continuo en el Gobiemo porque ellos no tienen poder para derrocarme” (509).§
What matters in this remark is not so much that El Supremo, in rebutting an
accusation, allows dissident voices to appear in his own discourse, but that an almost
unnoticeable (because self-evident) fact is carried over from the opposing discourse
into that of the Dictator: one does not depose a Head of State if one does not possess
the necessary political or armed power. In a sense, this explains why El Supremo, at
the very beginning of the novel, tells Patino that it does not really matter whether
“Is it not I who am the Supreme Pelican in Paraguay?” (130).
f “eagerness to rescue Paraguay from the misery, the despair, the abjection into which it has been
plunged for three centuries now” (354).
“Your Excellency loves his offspring the way the mother-pelican does; she caresses them so
fervently she kills them” (130).
8 “A pasquinade circulating these days claims that the people have lost their confidence in me, that
they are sick and tire of me, completely fed up with me; and that I continue in the Government only
because they do not have the power to overthrow me” (355).
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anybody was able to read the false decree or not (7-8). Even if, as El Supremo
admits, the falsifiers might be seeking to increase “en la gente ignorante los efectos
de esta inicua burla,”* what is really “perfido” [“perfidious”] is that someone has
falsified his signature and the tone of the Supreme Decrees (45). El Supremo is
concerned, in other words, with the existence of an unauthorized author who may
have enough power to depose him and become the next Dictator, and hence his
preoccupation, in the beginning of the novel, with finding the author of the false
decree.
As the double meaning of investiture indicates, a dictator may very well be
disrobed of his power, so that another social agent be robed with it, as long as he has
the qualifications required by the shifting position of Head of State. Indeed, much of
what we read in El Supremo’s narratives appears to be traces of a habitus:
dispositions of a dictator and his investments in absolute power. If a dictator is, by
definition, a man of action who not only orders what is to be written, but also orders
what is to be done (and therefore makes use of the performative language that the
political position affords him), El Supremo himself had been inclined to order ever
since he was a child.1 0 In recalling the time when he would watch the construction of
the building that would later be transformed into the Casa de Gobierno, El Supremo
states: “En mi cabeza de chico revolvia ordenes y contraordenes. Daba instrucciones
a los trabajadores. Hasta al maestro de obra. Prolongar ese foso hasta la barranca.
Levantar esa pared, ese muro un poco mas aca. . .. Paretian hacerme caso, pues
cumplian las ordenes que salian calladas fuera de mi” (115)/ The magic that the
“the effect o f this iniquitous farce among ignorant people” (30).
T “Orders and counterorders went round and round in my child’s mind. I would give the workers
instructions. Even the construction foreman. Extend that ditch to the cliff edge. Raise that wall,....
They appeared to pay heed to my advice, for they complied with the orders that silently issued forth
from me” (80-81).
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child imputes to the scene, where laborers obey orders that he did not even
pronounce, is apparently objectified in social relations when El Supremo’s
proclivities for ordering and dominating are carried over into his early adulthood.
According to Fray Mariano Bel-Asco, El Supremo’s uncle, Francia’s
relationship with his peers in the Colegio Real was quite similar to that primary but
founding scene: “Respecto de sus companeros, gusta sobremanera dominarlos, y lo
consigue porque es audaz, voluntarioso, intrepido en sus proyectos y ejecuciones.
Frecuentemente rine con ellos y los amenaza con un punal del cual jamas se separa.
Pero es su coraje el que impone respeto a sus condiscipulos” (208).* Within this
somewhat fuzzy space where domination and respect meet, El Supremo is, above all,
already capable of imposing punishment, as when he orders that one of his
companions eat the cores of the peaches he stole from him. Around that time, Bel-
Asco adds, El Supremo’s juvenile public figure earned him the nickname “El
Dictador,” which was, in his uncle’s view, a “mote prenunciante que por desgracia se
cumplio” (209).^ Whether or not we take Bel-Asco’s description of his nephew’s
reputation as a truthful account matters little in this case, for what the child
imaginatively perceives as magical is not unlike the magic one sees in the symbolic
power of naming.
In order to deserve the name “el Dictador,” Francia invests in the phantasm
of a Supreme figure, going through an inner apprenticeship whose initiation is
performed after he finds a skull at the site of the contruction of the future Casa de
Gobierno. Following the allusion to the cemetery scene in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
* “With respect to his fellow students, he takes especial pleasure in dominating them, and succeeds in
so doing because he is bold, self-willed, intrepid in his plans and their execution. He frequently
comes to blows with them and threatens them with a dagger that he carries about on his person at all
times. But it is his courage that causes his fellow students to respect him” (145-46).
t “prophetic nickname that proved to be only too apt” (146).
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one might say that Francia’s question was not exactly “to be or not to be,” but
rather “to be or not to be oneself” But not in the psychological sense we might
presently give to the sentence, for what is at stake in Francia’s apprenticeship is not
that sum of traits we have learned to call a personality. Francia seeks, on the
contrary, a self that is forged in and by itself He wishes to be bom in the skull, or
rather to be re-bom, supplanting his first biological birth by an intellectual one, as he
explains to the skull: “Lo unico que te pido es que permitas incubarme en tu cubo
incubo. No quiero ser engendrado en vientre de mujer. Quiero nacer en
pensamiento de hombre. Lo demas deja por mi cuenta” (217).* Using thus the skull
as a masculine womb, Francia gestates himself by means of his sole will (217) and
thereby rejects the family in which he was bom and to which he was an heir,
economically, sociologically, and psychologically. In one of his few notes found in
the compilation, El Supremo reiterates his vision of his self-generation: “Yo he
podido ser concebido sin mujer por la sola fuerza de mi pensamiento. ^No me
abribuyen dos madres, un padre falso, cuatro falsos hermanos, dos fechas de
nacimiento, todo lo cual no prueba acaso ciertamente la falsedad del infundio? Yo no
tengo familia;. . . . Yo he nacido de mi y Yo solo me he hecho Doble” (188).^ El
Supremo’s rejection of his biological family (or perhaps simply social family, for, as
he notes himself, he is attributed two mothers) leads him to play with the idea of
murdering his own father.
’ “The only thing I’m asking you is your permission to incubate in your incubus-cube. I don’t want to
be engendered in a woman’s womb. I want to be bom in a man’s thought. Leave the rest to me”
(152).
[ “I was able to be conceived without woman by the power o f thought alone. Do people not credit me
with two mothers, a false father, four false brothers, two birthdates? Does all this not prove beyond
doubt that these many stories are without foundation? I have no family;. . . . I was bom of m yself and
I alone have made m yself Double” (133).
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In recalling an attack by a jaguar when his father was taking him to the
Colegio Real, Francia recounts how he perceived the jaguar coming, but did not
warn anyone. Instead, he couples his will with that of the animal, jumps into the
river before the attack, and watches the jaguar rip his father (409). Enjoying a
somewhat sadistic pleasure, which he derives from the idea that the campground had
been transformed into a sacrificial stone, Francia finally uses his father’s rifle to kill
the jaguar and feels, one more time, that he was being re-born: “Nacia. Para siempre
extraviado del verdadero lugar, se quejaron mis primeros vagidos. . . . Bebi un sorbo
de mis propias preguntas. Jugo de lechetrezna. Marne mi propia leche, ordenada de
mis senos frontales. Me incorpore lentamente empunando el fusil” (410).* As a re
birth that results from an imaginary murdering of the father (for we know from the
compiler’s note that El Supremo’s father did not die at that occasion), the attack is
followed in El Supremo’s narrative by the final rejection, which actually occurred at
the time his father was in his death bed:
jSenor... el padre de S. Md. lo manda llamar!... Dejese de tales zonceras,
contramestre. En primer lugar, no tengo padre. En segundo, si se trata del que
usted llama mi padre, £no lo estan velando alia arriba? Si, Senor; don Engracia
acaba de morir. Pues bien, yo acabo de nacer. Como ve, en este momento
nuestros negocios son distintos. .. . Ya le he dicho que no me liga a ese hombre
vivo o muerto ningun parentesco. (410)+
Detached from any biological or social ties, El Supremo is free to forge his own
genealogy." According to his uncle Bel-Asco, the frequent allusions to his bastard
origin tormented Francia to the point that he had a false genealogical testimony
“I was being bom. The true place lost forever, my first cries of a newborn babe wailed.... I drank
my own questions down in one swallow. D evil’s-milk. I sucked my own milk, from my frontal
sinuses. I slowly rose to my feet, clutching the rifle” (285).
f “Sire... Your Worship’s father is asking for you!... Leave off such nonsense, bosun. In the first
place, I don’t have a father. In the second, if you’re speaking o f the one you call my father, aren’t
they keeping watch over him up there? Yes, Sire. Don Engracia has just died. Well, I’ ve just been
bom. As you see then, at this moment we have different business at hand. .. . I’ve already told you
that there are no ties of kinship binding me to that man, living or dead” (285-86).
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written (412). Before any of his public speeches, Bel-Asco adds, Francia would
always recite “las sacramentales palabras” [“sacramental words”] (412-13/287): “Yo,
el Alcalde de Primer Voto, Sindico Procurador General, natural de esta Ciudad de la
Asuncion, descendiente de los mas antiguos hijosdalgo conquistadores de esta
America Meridional” (413).* Although Bel-Asco’s idea of sacramental words
betrays his own environment as a priest, it does tell us something else about El
Supremo, namely, that his self-generated genealogy partook of his rites of institution.
Through his double genealogy, the one he can socially display and the one
cultivated within himself, Francia could rightfully be named (and accept or seek to
be named) El Supremo Dictador. As Bourdieu points out, “[t]he veritable miracle
produced by acts of institution lies undoubtedly in the fact that they manage to make
consecrated individuals believe that their existence is justified, that their existence
serves some purpose” (Language 126); and this belief is all the more credible the
more the purpose the consecrated individual serves coincides with the dispositions he
found in himself and in which he invested to the point of constructing a social image
that overlaps his own self-image. In defining the title of the Supreme Dictator, El
Supremo does nothing but reiterate his sense of being oneself by finding a correlative
in the socio-political world. Even when El Supremo is explaining apparently simple
matters to his subordinates, as in the letter in which he explicates to the sheriff of
Itapua why one should not hate others, he does so by conflating the political with the
personal: “La misma rabia, por justificada que sea, no se debe tolerar tener. Porque
cuando se cria rabia contra alguien es lo mismo que autorizar a que esa persona pase
todo el tiempo gobemando la idea, el sentir nuestros. Los menores momentos. Eso
“I, Councilman o f the First Vote, Syndic-Procurator General, native o f this City o f Asuncion,
descendant of the earliest hidalgos and conquerors of this Meridional America” (287).
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154
es falta de soberania en una persona” (253).* If one moves in an inverse fashion -
- from the personal back to the political, from personal sovereignty to the national
sovereignty for which the Supreme Dictator stands — one finds that, within the
Dictator’s discourse, supremacy corresponds to an absence of any type of relations
with an other. As the emissary from Buenos Aires notes, El Supremo is marked by a
“vesanica autosuficiencia” (361),+ an autonomy that not only makes him hear his
conscience alone, “cuyos dictados son los unicos que acat[a]” (233),J but also leads
him, in so doing, to a self-centered fixity that his self-generation partly guarantees.
In his eyes, “el eje de [su] pensamiento . . . esta siempre fijo girando sobre si mismo”
(145),§ and, unlike the Biblical patriarchs, he was able to establish his laws, liberate
his people, and found a nation “sin salir[se] del eje de [su] esfera” (472).** In this
sense, one might say that the “circular perpetua” is not only a discursive practice, but
one that objectifies, in its writing, the very nature of the Supreme Dictatorship.
History, however, does not allow for the fixity the Supreme Dictator pursues.
When Francia, the boy, finds the skull, he wants to be assured that it was not “el
craneo de un libertino hideputa” (216),^ like Francia’s own father, but rather the
skull of a “senor muy principal” (216).^ His attempt at finding a masculine womb
that would be analogous to the “Francia” he was attempting to generate by means of
a new birth is nevertheless sterile. Not only does the skull confess being a
“redomado hideputa” (214),§ § but he also reveals that he had been decapitated
* “Rage, no matter how justified, is something one should never tolerate in himself. For nursing anger
against someone is the same as allowing that person continued control o f our thoughts, our feelings.
The least moments. That is a lack o f self-sovereignty” (178).
f “insane self-sufficiency” (translation mine).
1 “whose dictates are the only ones I obey” (163).
J “the axis of [his] thought... ever remains fixed as it turns upon itself’ (103).
* ’ “without departing from the axis of [his] sphere” (329).
■ 1 “the skull of a libertine whoreson” (151).
■ l l : “most distinguished gentleman” (151).
“a complete son of a bitch” (translation mine).
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“porque intent[o] atizar un trabucazo al gobernador” (116).* That Francia should
be re-bom in the skull of a dissenter, an insurrectionist, as the skull itself affirms
(116), is no little matter, for the gestation of his self-sufficient supremacy takes place
within and in relation to the phantasm of insurrection, a phantasm that might very
well have gained a material body if the governor had not ordered the decapitation.
Within this paranoid short-circuit of reappearing phantasms of insurrection, El
Supremo must maintain his perpetual dictatorship on the basis of a concentration of
power. In referring to his subordinates, he points out precisely that he should do
away with them: “Ninguna necesidad de mantener a esta perfida gente. Ninguna
necesidad de un contrapoder intermedio entre Nacion/Jefe Supremo. Nada de
competidores. Celosos de mi autoridad, solo se empenan en minarla en beneficio de
la suya” (487).+ If he is to avoid becoming a skull in the hands of competitors,
jealous of his authority, El Supremo must act as the governor did. He must use the
power that is afforded him by means of his investiture, a power that was used against
the skull and which might, in turn, be used against him.
Interspersed in El Supremo’s narratives, one often finds traces of the
practices that guarantee the maintenance of the dictatorial power. Through physical
violence, the State, represented by El Supremo, takes possession of the bodies of
those citizens (or even non-citizens) that may pose a threat to the political body.
Hence, in searching for the anonymous author of the false decree, El Supremo tells
Patino that, in less than three days, he should “llevar al culpable bajo el naranjo.
Darle su ration de cartucho a bala” (24).* Although that order was never carried out,
“because [he] tried to do the governor in with a bullet from [his] blunderbuss” (81).
f “No need to keep these perfidious people. No need of an intermediary counterpower between
Nation/Supreme Head. No competitors. Jealous of my authority, their one aim is to undermine it so
as to enhance their own” (340).
* “bring the culprit to the foot o f the orange tree .... Give him his M l ration of rifle bullets” (16).
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for the anonymous author was never identified, others would be executed under
the dry, lifeless orange tree, such as El Supremo’s own cousin, Yegros: “Ya esta
amarrado al tronco del naranjo. Ha confesado su traicion. Le ha costado hacerlo, y
unicamente lo ha hecho cuando la dosis de azotes ha llegado a la cuenta de ciento
veinticinco. El Aposento de la Verdad hace milagros” (359).* In an ironic
euphemism, the fantastic power of miracles is confined to a room in which bodies
are physically punished, but whose result is the Truth. As an objective and symbolic
reminder that Truth may finally come to light, the “Aposento” has a restorative
function within the socio-political body. For what comes out of it is not an unheard-
of truth, but a Truth that El Supremo knows beforehand, and which should be
apparent in the symbolic and objective socio-political body. The time the traitor’s
body is sequestered into the “Aposento” is a gap between Truth and its restoration, a
gap that is soon closed by means of corporeal punishment.
As in the case of Yegros, treason, torture, and execution compose a political
tryptich that marks El Supremo’s relationship with two of his scripts, Pilar and
Patino. The first dreamed of being King of Paraguay, under the name Jose I, all of
which he confessed in the “Aposento de la Verdad” after being whipped. For such
treason, he was executed (49-50). Similarly, suspecting that Patino also has dreams
of becoming King of Paraguay (50), El Supremo lists him first among the “plantas
parasitas” of which he must rid himself:
Traer las cosas a vias de hecho juntando las mazorcas bajo la horca. Hacer
aparecer todo lo oculto. . . . Voy a empezar por el falsario que tengo mas a mano;
mi amanuense y fiel de fechos que anda tejiendo sus maquinaciones e intrigas
para alzarme en cuanto pueda con el gobiemo provisorio de fatuos. Nada mas que
* “He is already tied to the trunk o f the orange tree. He has confessed his treason. It has cost him a
great deal, and he has done so only after having had his hundred twenty-fifth taste of lash. The Truth
Chamber works miracles” (249).
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un toquecito de corriente voltaica en las zonas sensibles del batracio-actuario.
(488-89)*
Needless to say, El Supremo’s technique alludes to the electrical shocks that were, at
different times, common practice in the Southern Cone countries during the military
dictatorships. But, perhaps in an even more perverse fashion, El Supremo ends up
dictating to Patino, before he gradually disappears himself in the text of the novel,
the script’s own death sentence. Patino’s reaction, evident when El Supremo orders
that he hand him the papers so that he can sign them, physically foreshadows, in the
manner in which he carries his own body, the power that the words of a socially
instituted agent possess:
Alcanzame los papeles. Voy a firmarlos ahora mismo. Nueva tromba de agua, la
ultima, se arranca de la palangana en el brusco movimiento. El condenado se ha
cuadrado. Ha desaparecido. La persona catafalca del mulato se ha disuelto en el
charco que inunda el piso y forma arroyuelos en las junturas. . .. j Vamos,
acercate! es que quieres morir dos veces? Alcanzame los papeles. El fiel de
fechos asoma temerosamente de su escondrijo armado a doble calcanar. El
enorme corpachon sale en puntillas de sus patas. Poco a poco. Miedo a miedo. . .
. El duplice malandra, definitivamente partido en dos de arriba a abajo por el tajo
de la pluma. Firmo. Firmado. Echales arenilla a los oficios. Pon el tuyo en un
sobre. Lacralo. Senor, se acabo el lacre. No importa, va lacrado con la lacra de
tu ex persona. (577-78/
Perhaps El Supremo’s most perverse act, dictating Patino’s death sentence to Patino
himself, evinces how much orders that carry social power antecede themselves. As
* “Bring things closer to fruition by gathering all those rotten apples together under the orange tree.
Bring everything that’s hidden to light.... I’m going to begin with the double-dealer closest at hand:
my amanuensis and confidential clerk, who’s been weaving his plots and intrigues so as to throw his
lot in with the provisory fatuous government and stage a rebellion as soon as he can. Just a little
touch of voltaic current in the anuran actuary’s sensitive areas” (341).
1 “Hand me the papers. I’m going to sign them right now. Another waterspout, the last one, splashed
out of the basin as the result o f the brusque movement. The condemned man has come to attention.
Clicked his heels. Disappeared. The catafalque-person o f the mulatto has dissolved in the pool of
water flooding the floor and forming rivulets in the cracks.... Come on, come closer! Or do you want
to die twice? Hand me the papers. The confidential clerk fearfully creeps out o f his hiding place
reinforced by a double heelbone. The enourmous carcass emerges from its feet on tiptoe. Little by
little. Fear by fear.... The treacherous trickster, split cleanly in two from top to bottom by the slash
of the pen. I sign. Signed. Scatter sand on these decrees. Put yours in an envelope. Seal it. There’s
no more wax left, Sire. It doesn’t matter, your ex person has left its greasy imprint on it” (406-407).
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an ex-person, Patino dies before his death. He is now a dead alive, an embodied
phantasm, but not the only one.
In his search for the anonymous author of the false decree, the first places
that comes to El Supremo’s mind are the cells in the country’s prisons, where he
keeps his political opponents. But, according to Patino, they could never be that
author, since they have been imprisoned in absolute darkness for years (9). As if to
correspond to the isolation, the incommunicability, the absoluteness of the darkness
in which the prisoners were to be kept, Patino’s measures were certainly extreme:
Despues del ultimo Clamor que se le intercepto a Molas [one of the prisoners],
Excelencia, mande tapiar a cal y canto las claraboyas, las rendijas de las puertas,
las fallas de tapias y techos. . . . Tambien mande taponar todos los agujeros y
corredores de las hormigas, las alcantarillas de los grillos, los suspiros de las
grietas. Obscuridad mas obscura imposible, Senor. No tienen con que escribir.
(9-10)*
Whether or not we take Patino’s description as a hyperbolic one, one must still
concede that it was not an isolated narrative. It partook rather of a symbolic web
that, as we shall see, was part and parcel of El Supremo’s public figure. As the
Dictator himself recalls, Johann Rengger was another writer who hyperbolized when
describing the country’s prisons: “Describio carceles y tormentos indescriptibles.
Latomias subterraneas que llegan con su laberinto de mazmorras hasta el pie de mi
propia camara, copiado del que mando excavar en la roca viva Dionisio de Siracusa”
(167).' Even if we suspect that Rengger’s description, just like Patino’s, is at times
hyperbolic; and even if we therefore tend to agree with El Supremo when he says
that Rengger’s narratives, like those of Longchamp and the Robertsons, are merely
* “ After Molas’s last Outcry was intercepted, Excellency, I ordered the skylights, the cracks in the
doors, the chinks in the walls and ceiling filled in with stone and mortar.... I also ordered all the
holes and runways o f the ants, the culverts o f the crickets, the sigh holes o f the crannies plugged up.
No darker darkness possible, Sire. They don’t have anything to write with” (5).
' “[He] described indescribable prisons and torments. Subterranean latomies whose labyrinth of
dungeons reach as far as the foot o f my own chamber, copied from the one that Dionysius o f Syracuse
ordered excavated in the living rock” (117).
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“[p]apeles manchados de infamias mal digeridas” (166),* hyperbole does seem to
be the figure that best corresponds to El Supremo’s own description of the effects of
incarceration:
Al reo Manuel Pedro de Pena, papagayo mayor del patriciado, lo desblasone.
Decolguelo de su heraldica percha. Lo enjaule en un calabozo. Aprendio alii a
recitar sin equivocarse desde la A a la Z los cien mil vocablos del diccionario de
la Real Academia. De este modo ejercita su memoria en el cementerio de las
palabras. . . . El doctor Mariano Antonio Molas, el abogado Molas,... recita sin
descanso, hasta en suenos, trozos de una description de lo que el llama la Antigua
Provincia del Paraguay. . . . Ahi esta el frances Pedro Martell. Despues de veinte
anos de calabozo y otros tantos de locura sigue temando con su capon de onzas de
oro. . . . Se tumba en la hamaca y duerme feliz sobre su imaginario tesoro. . . . Del
mismo modo vivio en los sotanos por muchos anos otro ffances, Charles Andreu-
Legard, ex prisionero de la Bastilla, rumiando sus recuerdos en mi bastilla
republicana. (11)*
In fact, Pena’s burial in this cemetery of one hundred thousand words, Molas’s
untiring recitation of a lost Paraguay, Martell’s obstinacy in fantasizing with an
imaginary, buried treasure, and Andreu-Legard’s mnemonic ruminations are all
hyperbolic, and perhaps not much less so than Patino’s or Rengger’s descriptions of
El Supremo’s prisons. In their obsessive repetition of the same, all four prisoners
become, just like Patino, ex-persons, but almost speechless ones, unable to formulate
other narratives than the ones that have come to haunt them in their cells.
But even these obsessive phantasms might be better than nothing, for they are
still stories one may tell, even if over and over, and, in other less oppressive
* "[p|apcrs befouled by badly digested infamies” (117).
1 “The worst offender, Manuel Pedro de Pefia, parakeet number one of the patriciate, I disblazoned.
Cured of his cock-a-hoop habits. Took him down off his heraldic perch. Caged him in a prison cell.
He there learned to recite by heart, without a single mistake, the hundred thousand words in the Royal
Academy dictionary, from A to Z. That’s how he exercises his memory in the cemetery of words. .. .
Dr. Mariano Antonio Molas, Attorney Molas,... recites nonstop, even in his dreams, bits and pieces
o f a description o f what he calls the Former Province of Paraguay. . . . There’s the Frenchman Pedro
Martell. After twenty years in prison and as many more of madness he still thinks of nothing but his
chest full of gold pieces.... This was the sort of life live in the cellars for many years by another
Frenchman, Charles Andreu-Legard, ex prisoner of the Bastille, chewing over his memories in my
republican bastille” (6).
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circumstances, these haunted subjects might be able to find a way of articulating
other narratives. Other prisoners, such as the ones in the Tevego, a “pueblo-
penitenciario” [“penal colony”] (25/16), were not as fortunate as Pena, Molas,
Martell, or Andreu-Legard. Again, Patino’s description of this penitentiary is
nothing short of hyperbolic. In El Supremo’s eyes, the script is “medio
miliunanochero” [“sort of thousand-and-one-nightsy”] (26; translation mine) and
only attempts to make the Dictator waste time and divert his attention from the most
important matters by means of fantastic stories: “Ahora sale con la gracia de una
extrana historia de esa gente en castigo que ha migrado a alguna parte desconocida
permaneciendo en el mismo sitio bajo otra forma. Transformada en gente
desconocida que ha formado alii su ausencia” (27).* If, as El Supremo’s allusion to
the Thousand and One Nights suggests, Patino, like Scheherazade, is attempting to
save his own life by entertaining the Dictator with fantastic stories, his strategy is
somewhat dangerous, for the story he tells is ultimately not so different from his
own. As El Supremo’s recounting of Patino’s story points out, el Tevego would be a
site where people have undergone a certain metamorphosis: they have become
12
unknown people whose only presence is their apparent absence.
That Patino is not unaware of the fantastic nature of his story is clear in the
way he describes his own amazement: “jCosa de no ver y no creer ni viendo con mis
ojos!” (25). ' Nonetheless, even when he admits that there is still a possibility that
what they saw was nothing but what they believed they saw, he insists that what
happened to the village of the Tevego is true. However fantastic the story may
sound, he was a testimony. The Tevego was a silent, dark, lifeless place where one
“ He’s come out now with a weird story about those people serving out a sentence who have
migrated to some unknown place while remaining in the same place under another form.
Transformed into unknown people who have caused their absence to take on a form there” (17-18).
1 “Something not to be seen or believed even with my own eyes!” (16).
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cannot enter precisely because “[n]o hay alambrados, empalizadas defensas de
abatises ni zanjones. Nada mas que la tierra ceniza y piedras” (26).* In this “lugar
que se habia llevado su lugar a otro lugar” (25),1 the people themselves seemed to be
out of sight, blended in the sterility of the landscape: “Si hay gente alia lejos no se
sabe si es gente o piedra. Lunico que si son gentes estan ahi sin mo verse” f26)t
Such an immobility of what one suspects to be living beings can be doubly
misleading for those who believe they see it. For these stones are not stones, but
shadows of beings who are no longer beings, but merely shadows, “si uno ha de
desconfiar de lo que ve” (29).§ In Patino’s eyes, these shadows of beings
no viven como cristianos. Deben tener otra clase de vivimiento. Gatean parados
en el mismo lugar. Se ve que no pueden levantar las manos, el espinazo, la
cabeza. Han echado raices en el suelo. . .. esa gente no entiende nada de lo que
pasa, y en verdad que no le pasa nada. Nada mas que estar ahi sin vivir ni morir,
sin esperar nada, hundiendose cada vez un poco mas en la tierra pelada. (29) *
In effect, the Tevego appears to be precisely this threshold between being and non-
being, person and ex-person. When the commissioner Tiku Alarcon decides to enter
the Tevego in order to investigate, he also becomes, in a sense, a prisoner of the
place’s sterility. He came back “hecho un anciano, agachado hacia el suelo, a punto
de gatera el tambien,”^ and, most importantly, mute, “buscando el habla perdida”
(31)** More speechless than any of the other prisoners — for he did not even have,
* “[t]here are no barbed-wire fences, no palisades, no barriers, no trenches. Nothing but ashen earth
and stones” (16).
1 “place that had moved its place to another place” (16).
’ “If there are people there in the distance, there’s no way o f telling if they’re people or stone. Except
that if they’re people they’re not moving” (17).
* “if one is to disbelieve what one sees” (19).
* * “don’t live like other people. They must live some other sort of life. They crawl on all fours
without ever moving from the spot. It’s plain to see they can’ t raise their hands, their backbones, their
heads. They’ ve taken root in the ground.... those people don’ t have the least understanding of
what’s happening to them, and to tell the truth there isn’t anything that’s happening. Except just
being there, without living or dying, waiting for nothing, hoping for nothing, slowly sinking deeper
and deeper into the bare earth” (19).
* ! “an old man, all bent over, so that he too was practically crawling on all fours” (20).
n “[ljooking for the speech he lost” (20).
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like Pena, Molas, Martell, or Andreu-Legard, an obsessively repetitive narrative
to which he might cling Tiku Alarcon becomes a spectral figure. For Patino, the
trip back from the Tevego was like returning from a burial, only that “el muerto
venia vivo”* with them (31), but not for long. The following day, Tiku Alarkon,
shrunk more than a dwarf, died.
Perhaps yielding to Patino’s hyperbolic narrative, El Supremo later calls the
Tevego a “pueblo de fantasmas de piedra” (92).* For El Supremo, what is fantastic
in Patino’s story of the Tevego is not the phantasmalization of social beings, which is
neither surprising nor particularly fantastic for an “I” that has been invested as
Supreme Dictator, but rather the very telling of the story, the fictionalization that
Patino appears to impose on whatever it is that one may see at the Tevego. No
doubt, Patino’s hyberbolic narrative is a mode of cognition of a social given, the
imprisonment of social agents, but one that is crisscrossed by El Supremo’s vision of
social phantasms, therefore calling our attention back to the power that invested
agents have in naming. For one must bear in mind that, “[b]y structuring the
perception which social agents have of the social world, the act of naming helps to
establish the structure of this world, and does so all the more significantly the more
widely it is recognized, i.e. authorized” (Bourdieu, Language 105). In his “cuaderno
privado,” El Supremo notes how the “insurrection pasquinera” [“pasquinerian
insurrection”] reaches at one point a paroxysm: “Ya sabia yo que esos hablantines no
iban a quedarse callados. Mas diatribas, caricaturas y amenazas ensucian las
fachadas. . . . Hemos vuelto al tiempo de las bufonias” (237).* As an immediate
* “[t]he dead man was coming back alive” (21).
1 “camp o f stone ghosts” (64).
* “I knew those chatterboxes weren’ t going to shut up. More diatribes, caricatures, and threats have
dirtied the fagades. . . . We are back to the days o f grand punchinelleiy” (166).
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response to what he perceives as an intensification of his symbolic ousting, El
Supremo begins to call names, investing against these unauthorized speakers:
Castrados de almas-huevos. Incubos/sucubos de la guerrilla pasquinera.
Promiscua legion de eunucos sietemesinos. Tascas el freno del Gobierno y dejan
pegados al fierro sus cariados dientecitos de leche. Mujeriles fantasmas. Se
depilan las partes secretas para armar sus pinceles. Corruptores de la
tranquilidad publica, de la paz social. . . . Hijos de mala cepa los plantare en el
cepo, buen consejero para aquietar cabezas que quieren alborotar las ajenas. . . .
^Que es lo que ustedes se creen, malandrines? ^Creen que la realidad de esta
Nation que pari y me ha parido, se acomoda a sus fantasmagorias y
alucinaciones? j Ajustarse a la ley, vagos y malentretenidos! Tal el mundo que
debiera ser. La ley: El primer polo. Su contrapolo: la anarquia, la ruina, el
desierto que es la no-casa, la no-historia. Elijan si pueden. Mas alia no hay un
tercer mundo. No hay un tercer polo. (239-40)
As I have noted, one is reading here El Supremo’s “private notebook,” and one
might very well take his invectives as a sort of “taking-it-out-on-the-paper,” a mode
of personal relief that nobody, except for El Supremo, should have read.
Nonetheless, if the limits between the personal and the political are not as clear-cut
as one might wish them to be; if the social agent who in the privacy of his notebooks
calls his opponents phantasms is also the public figure who has been invested as
Supreme Dictator, one should perhaps suspect that these invectives are not merely
words. Cursing, for those who have been invested with power, may make reality,
and calling others phantasms may simply be a way of telling the truth that is about to
be. In the social world, those named phantasms by whoever has the authority to do
so may, after all, turn out to be phantasms.
“Castrati with your egg-souls cut off. Pamphletary band o f incubi/succubi guerrillas. Debauched
legion o f seven-month eunuchs. You champ at the bit o f Government and leave your decayed milk
teeth imbedded in it. Effeminate phantoms. You shave your secret parts to get hair to make your
paintbrushes. Corrupters of the public peace, of social peace.. . . The offspring of bad stock, I shall
imprison you in the stocks, a good counselor for cooling heads seeking to inflame other people’s. . . .
What do you think, you scoundrels? Do you think that the reality o f this nation to which I gave birth
and which gave birth to me accommodates itself to you phantasmagorias and hallucinations? Conform
to the law, you layabouts and loafers, you airy-fairy merry-andrews! The world as it ought to be. The
law: the first pole. Its counterpole: anarchy, ruin, die desert which is the non-house, non-history.
Choose if you can. There is not a third world beyond. There is not a third pole” (167-68).
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4.2. Symbolization as Political Praxis: Towards Other Phantasms
Titles are the most evident sign of an investiture whereby social groups
delegate power to certain social agents. They are, as we have seen, a mark that
points to a social difference, but one that is not limited to the public sphere in which
social agents, by means of a practical social topography of sorts, may perceive the
“nature” of their objective relations with other social agents. Titles also mark the
difference between “I” and “myself,” between the person who moves inside the
personal sphere and the public figure that one always displays, even when it goes
against one’s will or self-image. In Roa Bastos’s novel, as Milagros Ezquerro notes
(68), El Supremo inscribes that distinction between the person and the public figure
by establishing a difference between “I” and “He,” between the “I” the subject
utilizes in his discourse in order to situate himself, according to his mental social
topography, and the title that the social world may confer on him and around which a
public figure is composed. As El Supremo himself points out, even the “lavanderas”
[“washerwomen”] know that the “I” is not El Supremo, whom they love and fear at
the same time (126). As a political representative, El Supremo knows that he cannot
be one without engaging in the necessary symbolization of the public figure and of
the power of which he has been invested, for such symbolization is a fundamental
part of the manner through which political praxis is comprehended.'3
When El Supremo was still an “Alcalde de Primer Voto,” the Governor calls
him to his office, and, in a private conversation, he prepares Francia for the political
role by means of an informal education that, precisely because of its informal nature,
is all the more powerful. For the Governor, any social investiture is, to a great
extent, constituted by the symbolization of social roles:
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La costumbre de ver a un gobernante acompanado de guardias, tambores,
oficiales, armas y demas cosas que inclinan al respeto y al temor, hace que su
rostro, aun si alguna vez se ve solo, sin cortejo alguno, imprima en sus subditos
temor y respeto, porque nunca el pensamiento separa su imagination del cortejo
que orinariamente lo acompana. Nuestros magistrados conocen bien este
misterio. Todo el aparato de que se rodean, el indumento que gastan, les resulta
muy necesario; sin ellos verian reducida su autoridad a casi nada. . . . Solo las
gentes de guerra no van disfrazadas cuando van de verdad al combate con las
armas a cuestas. . . . Por eso es que nuestros reyes no han buscado augustos
atavios sino que se rodean de guardias y gran boato. Esas armadas fantasmas, los
tambores que van a la vanguardia, las legiones que los rodean, hacen temblar a los
mas firmes encapuchados-complotados. Precisariase una razon muy senil para
considerar como a un hombre cualquiera al Gran Turco guardado en su soberbio
serrallo por cuarenta mil jenizaros. Es indudable que en cuanto vemos a un
abogado con birrete y toga como V. Md., tenemos de inmediato una alta idea de
su persona. (121-22)
As the governor Velazco clearly explains to Francia, symbolization cannot take place
without an investiture, in the sense of being robed; it calls for an objectification
whereby social agents may perceive, in the world of objects, the power with which
social groups invest the political representative (but also other social agents who
possess social and symbolic power). Power, in this sense, must be visible, but at the
same time invisible in its naturalness, and hence El Supremo’s statement that the
washerwomen’s love-fear for El Supremo allows them to differentiate between “I”
and the Supreme Dictator while forcing them to forget that they know it (126).
* “[T]he custom o f seeing a government official accompanied by guards, drummers, officers, arms
and other objects inspiring respect and fear causes his face, even if one sees it all alone, without any
such escort, to inspire fear and respect in his subjects, because thought never separates his image from
the cortege that ordinarily accompanies him. Our magistrates are thoroughly familiar with this
mystery. A ll the pomp with which they surround themselves, the robes they wear, are most necessary
to them; without them, their authority would be reduced to very nearly nothing... . Warriors shed
their disguises only when they are really going off to war, bearing their arm s.. .. That is why our
kings have not sought august adornments, but have instead surrounded themselves with guards and
great ostentation. The phantom armies, the drummers who precede their cortege, the legions that
surround them make the most resolute cloakedp-and-cowled conspirators tremble. It would take a
very subtle mind to regard the Grand Turk guarded in his superb seraglio by forty thousand janissaries
as a mere ordinary mortal. There is no doubt that when we see a barrister such as Yr. Grace in his
biretta and gown, we immediately have a lofty idea of his person” (84-85).
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Although Francia never responded to the governor, preferring to keep
silence before him, one might think, from his assertions as the Supreme Dictator, that
he did not share with the governor his ideas on the vested “nature” of political power
and representativity. In effect, El Supremo affirms in his “circular perpetua” that
“[e]l soldado consiste en la capacidad. No en la ropa” (513),* and, in his letter to the
sheriff of Itapua, he advises him: “No necesitas fmgir . . . altaneria, furias de palabras
con las cuales en tu idiotez crees realzar afirmando tu poder de mando. Poder que no
tienes sino en delegation del Supremo Poder” (253).^ As is often the case, one
cannot take El Supremo’s words at face value, at least not in the text that the
compiler has constructed and which he, apparently, did not author. For, juxtaposed
to El Supremo’s fragment of the “circular perpetua,” one finds an excerpt from the
Robertsons’ Letters on Paraguay (1839) which contradicts El Supremo’s affirmation:
“Nunca vi una ninita vestir su muneca con mas seriedad y deleite que los que este
hombre ponia para vestir y equipar a cada uno de sus granaderos” (514-15)1 As if
this “insospechable testimonio” [“unimpeachable testimony”] were not enough, the
compiler adds to Robertson’s text the speech that Priest Perez gave on the occasion
of El Supremo’s funeral, which is quoted in Rengger and Longchamp’s book (515-
16).
Even if we read these antagonistic commentaries as a falsification of the real,
which is the position El Supremo often assumes, one cannot disregard other, perhaps
more problematic, contradictions because they appear in El Supremo’s own
discourse about his political measures. When he was invested with the Supreme
* “[t]he measure of a soldier is his capacity, not the clothes he wears” (359).
1 “You need not play high and mighty . . . or launch into those lofty diatribes o f yours which in your
stupidity you fondly believe enhance your authority. Authority that is not yours, but merely conferred
upon you as a deputy o f the Supreme Power” (178).
1 “I never saw a little girl dress her doll with more seriousness and delight than this man displayed as
he went about dressing and equipping each one o f his grenadiers” (358).
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Dictatorship, Francia proceeds to reform the Casa de Gobierno, in a gesture that
is not so dissimilar to the symbolization governor Velazco noticed: “Cuando entre a
ocupar esta casa [the Presidential Palace] al recibir la Dictadura Perpetua, la reforme,
la complete. La limpie de alimanas. La reconstrui, la hermosee, la dignifique, como
corresponde a la sede que debe aposentar a un mandatario elegido por el pueblo de
por vida” (118).* Indeed, El Supremo’s desired correspondence between building
and Head of State (and therefore, following the idea of a republican government,
between building, nation, and people) resembles the remarks one reads in one of the
compiler’s notes, which is taken from the Town Council’s report concerning the
homage paid to the Principe de la Paz. In this note, one reads: “Jamas podra citar
esta provincia una epoca mas brillante que la presente. Su poder era hasta hace poco
tiempo ilusorio y precario;. . . y las fiestas que se celebraron en homenaje al Principe
de la Paz . . . constituyen cabal prueba de este brillante presente de poderio,
prosperidad y grandeza” (354).+ That the symbolization of political power must be
objectified, either in the facade of buildings or in the parading that one often sees in
political commemorations, is evident in El Supremo’s own use of drums, which are,
according to El Supremo, “la caja misma de resonancia de [sus] ordenes” (250).*
Public appearances constitute, in this sense, a form of representation whereby social
figures must be seen and heard in all sorts of objects in order to actually appear in
public. What the public sees of this social figure that appears to them, in public, is
precisely this composite image of an invested social agent and the juxtaposed objects
“When I came to occupy this house [the Presidential Palace] on receiving the Perpetual Dictatorship,
I did it over, completed it. Cleaned the vermin out of it. Reconstructed it, embellished it, dignified it,
as befits the seat that is to house a head of government elected by the people for life” (82).
1 “This province will never be able to point to a more brilliant era than the present. Until very
recently its power was illusory and precarious;. . . and the festivities staged in homage to the Prince
of Peace . . . are a striking testimony to this brilliant present o f power, prosperity, and grandeur”
(246).
’ “the very sound box of my orders” (176).
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on which the symbolization of power is objectified. That is, as the herbalist
notes, what the public sees in El Supremo’s horse rides: “A traves de las rendijas la
gente espia el paso del caballo, rodeado por la escolta, entre el ruido de los pifanos y
el redoble del tambor. jLo ven a Su Excelencia! Erguido como suele en la silla de
terciopelo carmesi” (158).* To this remark, El Supremo replies in a somewhat
surprising manner, asking the herbalist, “6Como sabe usted si no soy Yo realmente el
que va montado en el moro?” (158)/ and hinting at the possibility that he may not be
the one who rides the horse.
The fact that public appearances function as a type of representation, for it
matters little whether it is really Francia or someone else on the horse, as long as that
person appears to be El Supremo (that is, as long as he embodies and is accompanied
by an objectification of the supremacy of the Head of State) suggests that
symbolization is not only part and parcel of political praxis, but also that it may be
used as tactics within struggles for power. Not unlike the “recibo simbolico del
Principe de la Paz” (347)/ who was only present in the celebrations by means of a
pictorial representation, El Supremo decides to symbolically punish a traitor, who
had fled from Paraguay: “A cada aniversario [of the flight], un nuevo rehen era
ejecutado en una especie de ritual que castigaba al culpable ‘in-absentia’ — segun el
inmemorial simbolismo de tales sacrificios en las victimas mas inocentes” (442).§
Unable to physically punish the traitor, El Supremo may nevertheless inscribe the
desired punishment in other bodies, symbolically executing the one who is absent
* “Through the slits in their shutters, people spy the horse as it passes by, accompanied by the escort,
amid the sound of fifes and drums. They see His Excellency! Tall and erect as always in the crimson
velvet saddle” (111).
1 “How do you know whether it is really I mounted astride the Arabian?” (111).
i “symbolic reception o f the Prince o f Peace” (241).
5 “On each anniversary [of the flight] another hostage was executed, in a sort o f ritual which punished
the guilty man ‘in-absentia’ — in accordance with the immemorial symbolism o f such sacrifices — in
the persons of the most innocent victims” (308).
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only to make such an absence visible, present before the public eye. In this
representation, both the traitor and those who are executed in his place become social
phantasms, inasmuch as what is absent must be present by means of a displacement
of sorts. Those who are physically present must be absented from their bodies, so
that the one who is absent may be made present. It is in this sense that one may
understand El Supremo’s claim that he does not represent things, but rather “re-
presencifa] las cosas” [“re-presents things”] (488; translation mine), even if that “re-
presenciacion,” so-to-speak, cannot occur without a level of symbolization.
Phantasmal representations (that is, representations of social beings who are
apparently there, but not quite so) also function as a military strategy, forging a
different type of “armada fantasma,” to borrow governor Velazco’s words, one that
is based on what El Supremo calls “el mecanismo de las refracciones” (361).* It
consists, essentially, in a retreat that is accompanied by a visual projection of the
Paraguayan troops, as El Supremo explains:
Cuando el enemigo ataca en los desiertos o en los esteros, ordenan retirada.
Hacen huir adrede a sus tropas. El invasor se interna persiguendolas por los
caldeados arenales o las planicies pantanosas. Escondidos entre las dunas o las
cortaderas, los paraguayos dejan la imagen de su ejercito reverberando en las
arenas o en las cienagas. Se vuelve asi imaginario y real al mismo tiempo en la
distancia. Las enganosas perspectivas falsean el milagro. . . . Durante muchos
dias, a lo largo de muchas leguas, el mismo engano alucina a los invasores.
Asombrados del incomprensible sortilegio y preguntandose como . . . pueden
desaparecer instantaneamente llevandose a sus muertos. Esta lucha contra los
fantasmas agota a los invasores que al fin son envueltos por los paraguayos que
caen de todas partes en aulladora avalancha. Los enemigos son destruidos en un
parpadeo. (361-62/
* “mechanism of refractions” (251).
“When the enemy attacks in desert terrain or in swamplands, they order a retreat. They cause their
troops to flee deliberately. The invader presses on, pursuing them through burning hot sands or bogs.
Hidden amid the dunes or the bulrushes, the Paraguayans leave the image of their army reverberating
in the sands or the swamps. It thus becomes at once imaginary and real in the distance. False
perspectives forge the miracle.. .. For many days, many leagues, the same illusion tricks the invaders.
Dumbfounded by this incomprehensible sorcery and asking themselves how the Paraguayan
footsoldiers . . . can disappear instantaneously, taking their dead with them. This fight against
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If these phantasmal troops are imaginary and real at the same time, it is because
there is in fact a certain projection, a projection without which the imaginary cannot
be constructed. Real and imaginary at the same time, the troops cannot be at the site
— the “pantalla lejana” [“distant screen”] that El Supremo mentions (362/251) —
where their images are projected. In a markedly distanced “espejismo” [“mirage”],
El Supremo’s military strategy produces phantasms against which one cannot fight,
but only tirelessly pursue.
Or perhaps one can attempt to dismiss them by calling them phantasms, which is
what the envoy from Buenos Aires Nicolas de Herrera does when confronted with
another of El Supremo’s tactical “espejismos”: a parade that should display
Paraguay’s military power to foreign emissaries. In El Supremo’s anachronistic
narrative, both Correia da Camara, the Brazilian commissioner, and Herrera view the
same parade, although they visited Paraguay at different times, and talk to each
other: “^Existen de veras esos seres que vemos?, pregunta el brasilero. Herrera, que
ha dado alguna vez la mano a Napoleon, le replica humillado, rencoroso: (,N° ve que
son fantasmas? Nos habran dado de comer alguna raiz danina, de esas que encarcelan
la razon” (358).* Even though Herrera’s explanation is indeed quite rational, for it is
grounded in natural, physiological processes, the apparently self-evident
phantasmatic nature of phantasms is not as visible as he claims it to be. The
difference between “seeing ghosts” and “seeing that they are ghosts” is not so clear,
as El Supremo notes in replying to Herrera: “Un temor real es menos temible que
uno imaginario. Pensar en un crimen, cosa todavia fantastica es. Cometerlo es ya
phantoms exhausts the invaders, who are then surrounded by the Paraguayans descending upon them
from all directions in a howling avalanche. Their adversaries are destroyed in the wink of an eye”
(251).
“Do those beings we’re seeing really exist?, the Brazilian asks. Herrera, who once shook hands with
Napoleon, answers him, humiliated, full o f rancor: Don’t you see they’re phantoms? They must have
given us some harmful root to eat, o f the sort that makes one’s reason a prisoner” (249).
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cosa muy natural. ^No sablan, senores, que solo existe lo que aun no existe?”
(358-59).* El Supremo’s reply is, of course, no innocent commentary, for he not
only counterposes one symbolic violence to another — Herrera’s “can’t you see” to
his own “don’t you know” but he also defends his parading phantasms with a jeu
d’esprit that can hardly be sustained in its paradox. For, if only that which does not
exist yet actually exits, then everything we see, everything we think exists, exists
only as non existent, as phantasms.
Nothing more distant from the Dictator’s definition of the political and from
the uses he makes of his delegated power than such a response. We should not,
however, read it literally, but rather within the context of a symbolic dispute that
cannot, in fact, be linguistically settled. Nonetheless, the episode stages, in this
circuit from Camara’s question to Herrera’s and finally to El Supremo’s, the
displacements that occur between the symbolization of political representatives and
the power vested in them and the phantasmalization to which they are subjected in
the very process of symbolization. For El Supremo is not as hospitable to phantasms
as his response to Herrera might suggest. He too attempts to dismiss the phantasms
that constitute, in the form of patchy projections, his public figure and which begin
to haunt him.
According to El Supremo, one ought to distinguish between the
“Persona/corporea” [“corporeal-Person”] and the “Figura-impersonal” [“impersonal-
Figure”] because the former may “envejecer, finar” [“grow old, meet its end”],
whereas the latter is “incesante, sin termino. Emanation, imanacion de la soberania
“A real fear is less to be feared than an imaginary one. To think o f a crime is still an imaginary
thing. To commit it is already a very natural thing. Didn’t you know, gentlemen, that the only thing
that exists is what does not yet exist?” (249).
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del pueblo, maestro de cien edades” (143).* However, precisely because one
ought to make a distinction between one and the other; precisely because there is a
gap between the person who is most easily identifiable in the materiality of his body
and the impersonal figure, that emanation may take unexpected turns. People (not
the abstract, political “people,” but social agents with particular histories) may see an
impersonal-Figure that is rather fantastic, if not altogether invisible, to the corporeal-
Person’s eyes.
They might see only “la capa mordore, chaleco, calzones y medias de seda
blanca, zapatos de charol con grandes hebillas de oro” (130),1 as if El Supremo were
nothing but the clothes he dons. And they might even fixate their eyes on an
apparently small detail of El Supremo’s costume, as if he could be, in fact, reduced
to that detail. “jPobres diablos!,” El Supremo comments, “Ven la insignia de mi
poder en las hebillas de mis zapatos. No pueden mirar mas alto. Ven en tales
hebillas cosas de maravillas: El caduceo de oro de Mercurio, la lampara de Aladino”
(130).J Indeed, some of the descriptions that we read in the students’ compositions
about El Supremo are nothing short of marvelous stories. Responding to the prompt
“como ven ellos la imagen sacrosanta de nuestro Supremo Gobierno Nacional”
(572),§ the students depict the most disparate images of El Supremo. Leovigildo
Urrunaga, for example, recounts the different images that his own parents instill in
him:
“unceasing, without end. Emanation, immanation: magnetization of the sovereignty o f the people,
master o f a hundred ages” (101).
7 “the mordore cape, the waistcoat, breeches and hose o f white silk, the patent-leather pumps with
great gold buckles” (91).
7 “Poor devils! They see in the buckles o f my shoes the insignia of my power. They can raise their
sights no higher. They see in those buckles marvelous things: Mercury’s gold caduceus, Aladdin’s
lamp” (91).
s “how they see the sacrosanct image of our Supreme National Government” (403).
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El Supremo es el Hombre-Dueno-del-susto. Papa dice que es un Hombre que
nunca duerme. Escribe dia y noche y nos quiere al reves. Dice tambien que es
una Gran Pared alrededor del mundo que nadie puede atravesar. Mama dice que
es una arana peluda siempre tejiendo su tela en la Casa de Gobiemo. Nadie
escapa de ella, dice. Cuando hago algo malo, mi mama me dice: jEl Karai va a
meter una pata peluda por la ventana y te va a llevar! (574)
Neither merely the fib of a child’s imagination, nor simply the scary story that
parents often tell children in order to discipline them, the boy’s composition cannot
be understood outside the web of fantasy that surrounds El Supremo’s public figure.
As the Dictator, El Supremo may order that the boy be brought to his presence, as he
actually does, so that the boy can see him. But, beyond infantile fantasy, are
phantasms that attached to the apparent literalness of physical bodies? And even if
so, can we still stop the conjuration of phantasms that occur in the social world?
Acting within forces that crisscross the social field as a whole, social agents cannot
but let themselves become subject to phantasmatic constructions, especially if they
engage in political practices and invest in becoming highly visible public figures. As
the Dictator himself admits, he is ultimately replaced by nothing other than a
fantastic figure:
La quimera ha ocupado el lugar de mi persona. Tiendo a ser ‘lo quimerico.’
Broma famosa que llevara mi nombre. Busca la palabra ‘quimera’ el el
diccionario, Patino. Idea falsa, desvario. falsa imagination dice, Excelencia. Eso
voy siendo en la realidad y en el papel. Tambien dice, Senor : Monstruo fabuloso
que tenia cabeza de leon. vientre de cabra v cola de dragon. Dicen que eso fui.
Agrega el diccionario todavia, Excelencia: Nombre de un pez v de una mariposa.
Pendencia. Rina. Todo eso fui, y nada de eso. El diccionario es un osario de
palabras vacias. (17-18)'
“The Supreme is the Man-Who-Is-Master-of-Fear. Papa says he’s a Man who never sleeps. He
writes night and day and loves us backwards. He also says he’s a Great Wall around the world that
nobody can get past. Mama says he’s a hairy spider forever spinning its web in Government House.
Nobody escapes from it, she says. When I do something bad, my mama says to me: ‘The Karai is
going to stick a hairy foot through the window and carry you off! ’” (404).
1 “The chimera has occupied the place o f my person. I tend to be ‘the very image o f the chimerical. ’
A famous joke, that will bear my name. Look up the word ‘chimera’ in the dictionary, Patino. A
false idea, a vain or foolish fancy, a fantastic creature of the imagination it says, Excellency. That’s
what I’m [sic] in the way o f being, in reality and on paper. It also says, Sire: A fabulous monster with
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A mythical figure like the Chimera, El Supremo inhabits the world of politics as
much as he does that of fiction. For, in becoming this objectified symbolic figure
that gradually slips into a phantasmatic stage, El Supremo functions, for the
fantasizing subjects, as a character, as El Supremo himself notes: . . soy ese
personaje fantastico cuyo nombre se arrojan unas a otras las lavanderas . . . . YO soy
ese PERSONAJE y ese NOMBRE. . . . YO soy el SUPREMO PERSONAJE que
vela y protege vuestro sueno dormido, vuestro sueno despierto (no hay diferencia
entre ambos) . . .” (459).* As such, El Supremo also gains the reality that fictional
characters do:
Cervantes, manco, escribe su gran novela con la mano que le falta. ^Quien podria
afirmar que el Flaco Caballero del Verde Gaban sea menos real que el autor
mismo? ^Quien podria negar que el gordo escudero-secretario sea menos real que
tu; montado en su mula a la saga del rocin de su amo, mas real que tu montado en
la palangana embridando malamente la pluma?
Doscientos anos mas tarde, los testigos de aquellas historias no viven.
Doscientos anos mas jovenes, los lectores no saben si se trata de fabulas, de
historias verdaderas, de fingidas verdades. Igual cosa nos pasara a nosotros, que
pasaremos a ser seres irreales-reales. (94)*
Inhabiting the social world not only as an agent, but also as character that is put to
perform in our not-so-private theaters, El Supremo becomes, indeed, an unreal-real
being, and not only in the sense that he is, at the same time, a real agent and an
the head of a lion, the body o f a goat and the tail of a dragon. They say that that’s what I was. The
dictionary also adds, Excellency: Name of a fish and of a butterfly. Quarrel. Dispute. I was all that,
and none of that. The dictionary is an ossuary o f empty words” (11).
* “... I am that fantastic personage whose name the washerwomen bandy back and forth .... I am
that PERSONAGE and that NAME.... I am the SUPREME PERSONAGE who watches over
and protects your sleeping dream, your waking dream (there is no difference between one and the
other). . . ” (320).
* “Cervantes, one-armed, writes his great novel with his missing hand. Who could maintain that the
Gaunt Knight in the Green Greatcoat is less real than the author himself? Who could deny that his fat
secretaiy-squire is less real than you; mounted on his mule, plodding along behind his master’s old
nag, more real than you mounted on the basin, awkwardly bridling your goose quill?
Two hundred years later, the witnesses o f those stories are no longer alive. Two hundred years
younger, readers do not know if they are fables, true stories, pretended truths. The same thing will
come to pass with us. We too w ill pass for real-unreal beings” (66).
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unreal character. Gradually approaching the moment of his biological death, El
Supremo sees himself progressively turn into the reality of unreal beings. In both
senses, the phantasmal status of both social agents and fictional characters produces
a haunting effect, which we shall pursue in the following section.
4.3.1 , the Supreme: A Haunted Subject Haunts Us
In his interview with Alain Sicard, Roa Bastos calls our attention to the fact
that, in Yo. el supremo, we witness the physiological decadence of the Dictator who,
unable to act, is doomed to write (“Augusto Roa Bastos sobre Yo el supremo” 7). In
effect, in one of the last excerpts that the compiler gathered from El Supremo’s
narratives, one reads about the decomposition of Francia’s body, which becomes
gradually infested with flies and larvae. This “disolucion completa” [“total
dissolution”] (598/422) constitutes a turning point in El Supremo’s trajectory, having
in mind what comes before and after it, within the narrative the compiler has
gathered.
Before Francia’s physical disappearance, at the very moment of his death,
there occurs a cleavage between “I” and “He,” between the person Francia and the
public figure of the Supreme Dictator: “Voy a levantarme un rato. Debo avivar el
fuego. Es EL quien sale de YO, volteandome de nuevo en el impulso de la
retrocarga” (593-94).* From that moment on, Francia begins to see El Supremo in
the same manner that we see the others as entities. He, the Supreme, appears to have
suffered none of the adversities inherent to a biological body. Francia sees him
“erguido, con su brio de siempre, la potencia soberana del primer dia. . . . No le tocan
“I am going to get up for a while. I must poke up the fire. It is HE who emerges from I, turning me
over again with the momentum of his retrocharge” (418).
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las rachas de viento y de agua” (594),* which infuriates him: “Hago que reviente
el ultimo aneurisma de voz que me reservaba bajo la lengua. Le escupo un
sangriento insulto. Quiero exasperarlo . . (594).* He has gained, however, an
independent life and, disinterested in Francia’s monologue, He opens the door,
leaves the room, and finally comes back in (595-96). In all His actions, He repeats
El Supremo’s habits, as if he existed outside any chronology, as El Supremo’s
watchful eyes show us:
Veo crecer su sombra. Oigo resonar sus pasos. Extrano que una sombra avance a
trances tan fuertes. Baston y borceguies ferrados. Sube marcialmente. Hace
crujir el maderamen de los escalones. Se detiene en el ultimo. El mas resistente.
El escalon de la Constancia, del Poder, del Mando. Aparece el halo de su erguida
presencia. . . . Reaparece. EL esta ahi. . .. Echa Have a las puertas. Encaja en los
bornes las trances de cinco arrobas. Le oigo recorrer con el mismo paso y
efectuar la misma operation de atrancar, inspeccionar y revisar prolijamente las
trece dependencias restantes de la Casa de Gobiemo;. . . . Se que no ha dejado
sin registrar un solo resquicio en la inmensa mole paralelopipedonica, babilonica,
de la Fortaleza Suprema. (596)*
Contradictorily, the moment that “I” and “He” are dissociated, therefore allowing, at
least phantasmatically, for the perpetuity of El Supremo’s supreme power, is
precisely when El Supremo perceives a final fusion between “I” and “He”: “YO es
EL, definitivamente. YO-EL-SUPREMO. Inmemorial. Imperecedero” (595).§ Yet,
such a fusion is not as even as El Supremo might wish it to be in his pursuit of
* “erect, with his usual brio, the sovereign power of the first day. . . . The blasts o f the wind and water
do not touch him” (419).
; “I pop the last aneurism of voice I was hoarding beneath my tongue. I spit a bloody insult at him. I
want to exasperate him . . . ” (419).
! “I see his shadow loom larger. I hear his footsteps resound. Strange that a shadow should have such
a heavy tread. Iron-tipped cane and studded boots. He climbs the stairs martially He makes the
stairboards creak. He stops on the last one. The most resistant one. The step o f Certainty, Power,
Command. The halo o f his erect presence appears.. .. It reappears. HE is here.... He locks the
doors. Lowers the crossbars that weigh five arrobas into their catches. I hear him make the rounds of
the thirteen remaining outbuildings o f the House o f Government I know that he did not neglect
to search a single chink in the immense parallelopipedonic, babylonic bulk of the Supreme Fortress”
(420).
§ “I is HE, definitively, I-HE-SUPREME. Immemorial. Imperishable” (419).
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political supremacy, for it cannot happen without Francia’s physical death. What
outlives that death is a public, almost mythical figure in which one may find only
traces of an “I”.
Unlike “He,” El Supremo’s “I” must face its own disappearance, which
becomes inevitable with Francia’s physical death. After the decomposition of
Francia’s body, the “I” symptomatically disappears from the narrative; it becomes a
“you” who is addressed by an unidentifiable narrative voice.1 4 Indeed, this last
excerpt might be read as El Supremo’s last narrative to be incorporated into the
compilation, but it can also be assigned to a “corrector” who appears at times on the
margins of El Supremo’s writings. In this last excerpt, not only is El Supremo
recriminated by his hallucinatory fable of absolute power, but he is also, to a certain
extent, cursed. For the voice tells him, in a sort of prefiguration that ends up
dictating that which it should be foreshadowing, what El Supremo is about to do and
what is about to happen to him:
... a media noche, bajaras a las mazmorras. Te pasearas entre las hileras de
hamacas que cuelgan unas encima de otras, podridas por veinte anos de
obscuridad, sufrimiento y sudor. No te reconoceran. No te veran siquiera. No te
veran ni oiran. Si aun hubieras tenido voz, te habria gustado insultarlos, hacer
mucho ruido segun tu costumbre; tomarte desquite de esos espectros que osaran
ignorarte.. . . Lo bueno, lo mejor de todo es que nadie te escucha ya. Inutil. Que
te desganites en el absoluto silencio. . . . ^Sabras si suenan y te suenan como a un
animal desconocido, como a un monstruo sin nombre? . . . Seras para ellos
simplemente la forma del olvido. Un vacio. Una obscuridad en esa obscuridad.
Te tenderas por fin en una hamaca vacia. La ultima. La mas baja entre las hileras
de hamacas que oscilan levemente bajo arrobas de fierros cien veces mas pesados
que sus osamentas de espectros.. . . El sudor de esos miserables, sus cacas, sus
orines, chorreando de hamaca en hamaca babearan sobre ti, lloveran gotas, gotas
de cieno sepulcral. Te aplastaran hacia abajo cada vez mas. Apuntalaran tu
inmovilidad con esos pilares al reves. Estalactitas creciendo sobre su suprema
impotencia. (600-601)*
“... at midnight, you w ill go down to the dungeons. You will walk about amid the rows of
hammocks hanging one atop the other, rotted by twenty years o f darkness, suffering, and sweat. They
will not recognize you. They w ill not even see you. They w ill neither see nor hear you. If you still
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Like Patino at the moment El Supremo dictated his death sentence, El Supremo
too becomes a “no-persona” [“non-person”] (601/424), perhaps following the dictate
of a disembodied voice. What this voice tells us is not merely that I, the Supreme is
now doomed to a phantasmal life among other specters. For even among specters
there seems to be a clear hierarchy, one that is objectified in their use of a space that
reproduces, phantasmatically, the cells in which El Supremo had sequestered bodies
and conjured up apparently material phantasms. In a sort of bizarre turn (which is
also the perverse side of his curse), El Supremo is a phantasm who can nonetheless
feel the excrements of all the specters who lie, within the hierarchy, over and above
him. In this sense, El Supremo is not exactly a “non-person” like any other of the
“non-persons” we might call specters, but rather the “supreme impotence,” as the
voice claims, the “non-personest” of all “non-persons.” If we believe that the curse
will be realized, then the “perpetual circular” has finally completed its full turn. The
Supreme Dictator has ultimately become the Supreme Impotent.
But El Supremo’s impotence is not only a matter of curse, for, as we have
noted, the narrative voice cannot be pinned down to any character or any speaker
specifically. Unless, of course, we consider the possibility of a self-inflicted curse,
one that El Supremo utters by means of a split between the positions he might
occupy in his own discourse. Talking back to himself and sentencing himself to a
had a voice, you would have liked to insult them, to cause a great uproar as usual; to wreak your
vengeance on these specters who dare to ignore you.. .. The good part, the best part o f all is that
nobody hears you now. Useless to scream your head off in the absolute silence. . .. Will you know
whether they are dreaming, dreaming of you as a strange animal, as a monster without a name? . . .
For them you w ill be no more than the form of forgetM ness. An emptiness. An obscurity in that
obscurity. You w ill finally stretch out in an empty hammock. The last one. The lowest one among
the rows of hammocks that sway gently beneath arrobas o f irons a hundred times heavier than their
bones o f specters.. . . The sweat of these wretches, their shit, their urine, trickling from hammock to
hammock, will dribble down on you, rain down drops, drops o f sepulchral slime. They will crash you
flatter and flatter, push you farther and farther down. They w ill aim these inversed pillars at your
immobility. Stalactites growing above your supreme impotence” (423-24).
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last (but perhaps definitive) turn of the circular, El Supremo’s supreme
impotency is also the realization of his own paranoid phantasms. For, in producing
social phantasms (in terms of both sequestered bodies and in that of political
symbolization), El Supremo also becomes haunted by such phantasms or, more
precisely, by the phantasm of phantasmalization. That El Supremo’s narratives
should be interspersed with invectives against almost every person with whom he
had contact, as we have mentioned, is no small detail; it substantiates what different
travelers say about the Dictator. In effect, El Supremo’s irascible character did not
escape Rengger and Longchamp’s attention during their stay in Paraguay.
According to El Supremo, the two Swiss doctors wrote in their Ensavo historico
sobre la Revolution del Paraguay that the north wind greatly affected El Supremo.
Under the influence of this wind, El Supremo suffered from hypochondriac attacks
that he could only quench by uttering his invectives against those around him, his
“enemigos reales o imaginarios” (164).* El Supremo then “[ojrdena arrestos. Inflige
crueles castigos. En momentos tan borrascosos seria para el una bagatela el
pronunciar una sentencia de muerte” (164)." Although el Supremo is evidently
irritated with Rengger and Longchamp’s story, that irritation only makes him
confirm the story by saying that they should be executed for being liars, forgers, and
cynics (164). His “fantasmas particulares” [“private phantoms”] (164/116), which is
how El Supremo translates Rengger and Longchamp’s idea of imaginary enemies, do
suggest that El Supremo is haunted by paranoid phantasms. His “spirit,” as he
defines it himself, is that of someone who is always “alerta contra [si] mismo;
desconflando siempre, hasta de lo mas confiable” (397).* If, as the anonymous false
* “real or imagined enemies” (116).
f “He orders arrests. He inflicts cruel punishments. At such stormy moments it would be a mere
bagatelle for him to pronounce a death sentence” (116).
1 “on the alert against [himjself; always mistrustful, even of what is most trustworthy” (276).
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decree at the beginning of the novel suggests, El Supremo fears being ousted
(which is, of course, not an unreasonable supposition for an agent who moves within
the field of politics), it is not surprising that El Supremo should be haunted by the
phantasm of impotence.
Such a phantasm also translates, within El Supremo’s narratives, as a fear of
the feminine, which appears in the figure of La Andaluza. In this obvious play with
the stereotypical view of Andalucia as a region where women are overtly sexual, the
nickname “La Andaluza” in fact describes quite faithfully El Supremo’s image of the
Spanish woman: “El inconfiindible, el immemorial husmo a hembra. Tufo carnal a
sexo. Lujurioso, sensual, lubrico, libidinoso, salaz, voluptuoso, deshonesto,
impudico, lascivo, fomicatorio” (72-73).* That El Supremo should focus his
attention on the woman’s smell is quite significant if we bear in mind that smells are
physical but not apparent and that, in their physical invisibility, they must be inhaled,
brought into our bodies in order to be perceived by our senses. For El Supremo, the
exchange that takes place between our own and foreign bodies constitutes a form of
incursion: “Sus vaharadas se expanden, llenan el aposento. Penetran los menores
intersticios. . . . Debe de estar invadiendo la ciudad entera” (73).^ In his analogy
with a military invasion, El Supremo suggests that the smell of the female body may
turn things inside out by physically taking control of the man’s body:
La nausea me paraliza al borde de la arcada. Estoy a punto de vomitar. Me
contengo en un esfuerzo supremo. No es que huela solamente ese olor a hembra;
que lo haya recordado de pronto. Lo veo. Mas feroz que un fantasma que nos
ataca a plena luz saltando hacia atras, hacia adelante, hasta el final de esos dias
primeros, quemados, olvidados en los prostibulos del Bajo. El olor esta ahi.
Samson-hembra se ha abrazado a las columnas de mi templado templo. Enrosca
“The unmistakable, immemorial odor of woman. Carnal smell of sex. Lustful, sensual, lubricious,
libidinous, salacious, voluptuous, dishonest, shameless, lascivious, fomicatory” (50).
; “Its effluvia expand, fill the room. Penetrate the smallest interstices.. . . It must be invading the
entire city” (50).
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sus millares de brazos a los horcones de mi inexpugnable eremitorio-efectorio.
Pretende desmoronarlo. Me mira ciegamente, me olfatea invisible. Pretende
desmoronarme. (73)
Before Sultan, El Supremo’s dog, interrupted the scene and chased La Andaluza
away, the invasion seemed to be well under way, for at the end of El Supremo’s
narration, it is the woman’s smell that smells him. Within this sexual/military
dichotomy between active and passive, El Supremo might be losing terrain, giving
up his own body to foreign ones. For, with the reversal of the dichotomy
passive/active, a second, parallel dichotomy is also upset, inasmuch as, after a
successful invasion, residents become aliens in their own home. For El Supremo, the
prospect of becoming a foreigner in one’s own home, and therefore a “stranger to
oneself,” may also dangerously follow the path that leads us all to bed, a path that, in
El Supremo’s eyes, is always threatening because the domestic, sexual sphere might,
albeit invisibly, be dictating the forces that agents may exert in the socio-political
world.
In this sense, El Supremo’s allusions in his narrative to Hercules and Samson,
both of whom were overpowered by women who were their sexual partners, serve as
a form of warning, which he does take to heart, defining his virility in terms different
than the sexual. That is what he explains to Rengger, who worked for a time as El
Supremo’s physician:
^Le he exigido, por ventura, que me tensara de nuevo los nervios de la verga,
ponerla en su hora de otrora sobre el cuadrante bravio? No rogarian otra cosa a
todas las deidades del universo los vejarracos decrepitos, pelados, sordidos,
encorvados, cinicos, desdentados, impotentes. Nada de eso espero de usted, mi
“I am paralyzed with nausea. Retching, on the point o f vomiting. With a supreme effort, I contain
myself. It is not merely that I smell this female odor, that I have suddenly remembered it. I see it.
Fiercer than a phantom that attacks us in broad daylight, leaping back and forth, to the end of those
first days, burned up, forgotten, in the brothels of the Lower Town. The smell is here now. Female-
Samson, she has embraced the pillars o f my temperate temple. She coils her thousands of arms
around the wooden columns o f my unimpregnable eremitorium-erectorium. Trying to topple it. She
looks at me blindly, sniffs at me, invisible. Tiying to topple me” (50-51).
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estimado galeano. Mi virilidad, usted lo sabe, es de otra laya. No se agota en
la gota. No declina. No envejece. (163)*
If El Supremo’s virility is of a different sort, a virility that is not subject to the
biological processes of aging and decomposition, it is because it coincides with one
of the defining characteristics of the Dictator’s supremacy: its imperishability, its
deathlessness. Virility is, in that sense, a synonym for supremacy, but one that
points to the “supreme effort,” to use El Supremo’s own words, which the Supreme
Dictator must make in order to eschew his own sexuality. Such a detour is
performed, at times, by means of a displacement, insofar as dictating and writing
become, for the Dictator, a sexualized act.
Impatient with what he calls Patino’s distortion of his dictation, El Supremo
decides to perform, together with his script, “el escrutinio de la escritura” [“the secret
of writing”] and teach him “el dificil arte de la ciencia scriptural que no es, como
crees, el arte de la floracion de los rasgos sino de la desfloracion de los signos” (83)/
But, in order to deflower linguistic signs, one must have, in hands, a phallic object,
and thus the pen becomes a “metal puntiagudo-fno” [“cold-sharp-pointed metal”]
and the paper, “una superficie pasiva-caliente” [“a hot-passive surface”] (84/58). In
writing, “[e]l fierro de la punta rasga la hoja” (84),1 and the sexualized act of writing
becomes, once more, a violent act, an enactment of symbolic power in the very
manner the writer must hold his pen against the paper. El Supremo advises:
“Descarga todo el peso de tu ser en la punta de la pluma. Toda tu fiierza en cada
movimiento en cada rasgo. Montala a horcajadillas, a la bastarda, a la estradiota”
“Did I perchance demand that you rewind my cock, set it at its hour of yesteryear on the virile dial
again? Decrepit old gaffers, bald, abject, stooped, cynical, toothless, impotent, would ask nothing else
of all the deities of the universe. I expect no such thing o f you, my esteemed Galen. My virility, as
you know, is o f another sort. It never peters out from gout. It does not decline. It does not grow any
older” (115).
f “the difficult art of scriptuary science, which is not, as you believe, the art of tracing flowery figures
but of deflowering signs” (58).
" “the iron of the point scores the paper” (58).
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(84).* Mounting the pen (or is it perhaps language?) might enable Patino to write
without the distortions that irritate El Supremo, and he does feel, when writing, that
“estan saliendo letras muy extranas” (84).* But El Supremo calms him down,
teaching him his own conception of writing: “Escribes. Escribir es despegar la
palabra de uno mismo. Cargar esa palabra que se va despegando de uno con todo lo
de uno hasta ser lo de otro. Lo totalmente ajeno. Acabas de escribir sonoliento YO
EL SUPREMO. jSenor... usted maneja mi mano!” (85).* In fact, El Supremo had
been holding Patino’s hand all along, exerting on it the same type of physical and
symbolic violence that he expected from Patino when writing: “Yo aprieto tu mano.
Empujo. Prenso. Oprimo. Comprimo. Presiono” (84).§ If that is the case, then
Patino’s suggestion is quite plausible: the one who wrote I THE SUPREME was El
Supremo himself.
Nonetheless, the redundancy of that affirmation and the haunting possibility
that it was, after all, Patino who wrote I THE SUPREME not only refer us back to
the primary scene in the novel (the one of the anonymous false decree), but it also
does so by presenting us with another phantasm. What haunts El Supremo, in his
desire to overcome the distortions of language and representation by means of a
sexualized and symbolically violent use of the pen and paper, is the phantasm of
substitution, politically and linguistically. For, in terms of representativity and in
terms of representation, substitution is a structuring mechanism, leading El Supremo
* “Put all the weight of your being onto the point of the pen. All your strength into each movement of
each stroke. Mount it, straddle it, ride it like a stradiot” (59).
1 “very strange letters are coming out” (59).
1 “You are writing. To write is to disconnect the power of words from oneself. To so charge that
power of the word that it gradually detaches itself from oneself with everything that is one’s very own
and becomes that o f another. The totally alien. You have just drowsily written: I THE SUPREME.
Sire... you’re forcing my hand!” (59).
§ “I’m squeezing your hand. I push. I press. I oppress. I compress. I press down” (58; modified
translation).
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to a double, but inglorious, “battle against phantasms,” to use his own military
expression. Thus, at the same time that El Supremo orders, in seeing the false
decree, that Patino should “ref[orzar] la vigilancia de los que se alucinan con poder
suplantar[lo] despues de muerto” (9)* — or, what is worse, with replacing him while
he was still alive he also invests against those who are responsible for the
substitutions of representation.
What El Supremo seeks, in his relation to our ability, as speakers, to
represent ourselves and the world around us, is a language that supplants the
necessary gap between the sign and the referent.1 5 That search is conducted along
two parallel lines. The first one refers to a mythic concept of language, in which
either the sign or the referent could bridge what appears to be an unbridgeable gap.
For El Supremo, “[tjendria que haber en nuestro lenguaje palabras que tengan voz.
Espacio libre. Su propia memoria. Palabras que subsistan solas, que lleven el lugar
consigo. Un lugar. Su lugar. Su propio material. Un espacio donde esa palabra
suceda igual que un hecho” (18);^ or else, he says, one should be aware that when we
do not know the names of things and of beings is when we know them the most, for,
in that case, “[s]us nombres son ellos mismos. Identicos en forma, en figura, en
pensamiento. Laten dentro de nosotros” (464)/ Nevertheless, what El Supremo
finds, as a speaker, is a multiplicity of significations that impede that identification
between speakers and speech, between things or beings and their representation. If,
as El Supremo admits, “[u]na misma cosa puede decirse de distintos modos con
’ “fpjost more guards to watch over those who labor under the delusion that they can replace [him]
once [he’s] dead” (4).
t “[t]here would have to be words in our language that had a voice. Free space. A memory o f their
own. Words that subsisted alone, that brought place with them. A place. Their place. Their own
material. A space where the word would happen the way an event does” (11).
' “[tfheir names are themselves. Identical in form, in figure, in thought. They palpitate within us”
(324).
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diferentes aplicaciones que pueden tener diversos sentidos” (518),* identity in
linguistic exchanges can only be met if one of the speakers is able to be socially
recognized as an authoritative voice. As an agent who has been invested of a socio
political power, El Supremo can not only claim to know the “true meaning” of facts
(432) and to be the only one who can decipher the ciphers of writing (33), but he
must also point out what he calls “la maldicion de las palabras” [“the curse of
words”], namely, the fact that language “obscurece lo que busca aclarar” (297).* If
language obscures what it should clarify, that is, if it covers the world over with
words, the language of falsification, which El Supremo opposes to that of his
dictatorship, may be twice as dangerous as ordinary language. For, in this case,
“[l]as palabras de mando, de autoridad, palabras por encima de las palabras, seran
transformadas en palabras de astucia, de mentira. Palabras por debajo de las
palabras” (43).* “Above” and “below,” this dichotomy suggests a hierarchy, an
inverted one, in El Supremo’s eyes, insofar as the language of falsification is
superposed to the performative language of the Dictator.
The effect of this superposition, a sort of palimpsest of words on top of
words, draws language close to the fictional. Twice distanced from the real,
focusing on the verisimilar not the truth, the fictional appears to be characterized by
a concern with techne. which is what El Supremo criticizes in the writings of the
Paraguayan intellectuals who wanted to found an Aeropago de las Letras, las Artes y
las Ciencias. As El Supremo points out, most likely not without reason, “[a] ellos no
les interesa contar los hechos sino contar que los cuentan” (47).§ In defining, quite
“[o]ne and the same thing can be said in different ways with different applications that may have
different meanings” (362).
f “obscures what it is seeking to express” (207).
+ “[t]he words of power, of authority, words above words, w ill be transformed into clever words, lying
words. Words below words” (29).
§ “[w]hat interests them is not recounting the facts, but recounting that they are recounting them” (32).
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accurately, the metalinguistic capacity of literary language, El Supremo also
reminds us, in his phrasing, that the hierarchy in which authorities are positioned is
embodied in agents with particularly different points of view, as he notes in one of
his invectives against fictional writers:
No te [Patino] estoy dictando un cuenticulario de nimiedades. Historias de
entreten-y-miento. No estoy dictandote uno de esos novelones en que el escritor
presume el caracter sagrado de la literatura. Falsos sacerdotes de la letra escrita
hacen de sus obras ceremonias letradas. En ellas, los personajes fantasean con la
realidad o fantasean con el lenguaje. Aparentemente celebran el oficio revestidos
de suprema autoridad, mas turbandose ante las figuras salidas de sus manos que
creen crear. De donde el oficio se toma vicio. (82)*
In El Supremo’s discourse, the allusion to Marx and Engels’s idea that men, the
creators, have bowed down before their creations (German Ideology 37), seems to be
doubly alarming, at least in the Dictator’s eyes. For El Supremo not only sees that
these men need to be liberated from their chimeras, as Marx and Engels suggest, but
he also notes that, invested too of a supreme authority, these “creators” might
willingly (and perhaps successfully) let their phantoms get out of their hands and
fantasize with reality and with language. If invested with supreme authority, they
too might produce phantasms out of real persons and ultimately sequester El
Supremo, as one of them did with Macario, into the world of fiction. For the
Supreme Dictator, what these unauthorized (or perhaps supremely authorized)
speakers do is “[i]mpedir que [el] sea [su] propio comentario” (43)/ which is another
way of saying “his own author.”
* “I am not dictating a quanticle o f claptrap to you [Patino]. Mere bibble-babble. Amusing stories as
false as dicers’ oaths. One of those potboilers in which the writer flaunts the sacred nature of
literature. Pretended high priests of letters make pretentious ceremonies o f their works. In them, the
characters spin fabrications out of reality or out of language. They appear to be celebrating their Mass
vested in supreme authority, but in reality they are filled with turbation in the face o f the figures
emerging from their hands, which it is their belief they create. Hence their office becomes a vice”
(57).
1 “To prevent [him] from being [his] own commentary” (29).
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4.4. An Author’s Apparent Disappearance
In one of his dialogues with Patino, El Supremo attempts to explain to him
how writing changes according to different circumstances: the compass points, one’s
mental disposition, the drift of the winds and events (88). After the explanation, he
hands the false decree to Patino and orders that he study the writing in the text in
order to find its author. In the following narrative sequence, we read in El
Supremo’s private notebook his own personal commentary about the differences in
writing in what regards the decree: “Las mismas palabras expresan diferentes
sentidos, segun sea el animo de quien las pronuncia. Nadie ordena que su cadaver
sea decapitado sino aquel que quiere que lo sea el de otro. Nadie firma YO EL
SUPREMO una parodia falsificatoria como esta, sino el que padece de absoluta
insupremidad. ^Impunidad?” (89).* What El Supremo calls here “animo,” at least in
relation to the false, anonymous decree, seems to be a quite specific fantasy. It is,
indeed, not only a fantasy of aggression and physical violence, but a fantasy that
someone constructs (an anonymous author, an unidentifiable social agent) in relation
to a very specific figure, the Supreme Dictator. As such, El Supremo knows that,
besides the conditions that affect an author’s “animo,” there are also conditions that
affect the effectivity of one’s fantasies. How much power and capital does that
anonymous author have to invest, as a social agent, in his fantasy? Is it enough to
consolidate the effectivity of the phantasm to a point that it materializes and El
Supremo is, in fact, decapitated, perhaps even before his death? Because these
questions are not overtly posed, but implicitly recognized, El Supremo’s discourse
slips from “insupremidad” to “impunidad.” In the position of Supreme Dictator,
“The same words express different meanings, as suits the mood o f the person uttering them.. . .
Nobody orders his dead body to be decapitated save someone who wants it to be someone else’s.
Nobody signs I THE SUPREME to as gross a travesty as this, save someone who suffers from
absolute insupremacy. Impunity?” (62).
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recognizing that he who illegitimately writes “I, the Supreme” lacks supremacy
is not enough. An unauthorized speaker must be held accountable for his acts,
unless, of course, he is socially deemed unaccountable. Like Shakespeare’s jokers,
the skull that Francia found tells the boy that he “cri[o] fama de mentiroso para decir
impunemente la verdad” (214),* an impunity that he was not able to maintain when
he recurred to physical violence. Taking up in arms cost the skull his head and his
life. But if not all acts are equal (including acts of writing and authorship), for not all
of them have the same social impact, neither are punishments.
Concerned about the fact that his prisoners, especially Pena and Molas, might
find a way of engaging in “comunicaciones clandestinas” [“clandestine
communications”] (9/5), El Supremo observes that, even if they had no writing
instrument with which they might establish some sort of communicative exchange,
they still had their memory. But, El Supremo adds, that memory functions more like
an instinctive reaction than memory itself: “^Puedes certificar de memorioso al gato
escaldado que huye hasta del agua fria? No, sino que es un gato miedoso. La
escaldadura le ha entrado en la memoria. La memoria no recuerda el miedo. Se ha
transformado en miedo ella misma” (10). ' Physical bodies also have a memory, a
memory that does not recall events by means of mental representations, but rather
incorporates them into one’s subjectivity, physically and phantasmatically, to the
point that a memorized fear becomes a fear that the subject once again feels. Within
our physical memory, the sequester of one’s body, meaning the type of physical
dispossession we find in imprisonment, torture, or exile, is the quintessential form of
* “nursed [his] reputation as a liar so as to tell the truth with impunity” (150).
1 “Can you state categorically that the scalded cat that flees even cold water is possessed o f a good
memory? No, merely that it’s a cat that’s afraid. The scalding has penetrated its memory. Memory
doesn’t recall the fear. It has become fear itself’ (5).
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this “memory” that might also be defined as a “re-presenciacion,” drawing upon
El Supremo’s definition of his own use of language.
In this sense, one might say that the compiler is also this sort of cat-like
subject who, because of his sequestered body, “re-presencia” his own memory.
When the compiler finally takes possession of El Supremo’s “pluma-recuerdo,”
which was in the hands of Raimundo Loco-Solo (Patino’s fourth grandchild who
happened to be one of the compiler’s childhood friends), Loco-Solo foretells his
friend’s future as an exile: “Te esperan muy malos tiempos, Carpincho [the
compiler’s nickname], Te vas a convertir en migrante, en traidor, en desertor. Te
van a declarar infame traidor a la patria. El unico remedio que te queda es llegar
hasta el fin. No quedarte en el medio” (286).* But what could Loco-Solo have
meant when he said that the compiler should reach the end, not stop in the middle?
Perhaps the answer to this question lies in what Loco-Solo says to the compiler right
after his prediction, “Anda ya haciendole punta al palito” (286); as if he wished to
indicate that the compiler would have an arduous task ahead of him, as a writer.
But that is not all. One must also bear in mind that, after having denied to give
the pen to the compiler, who desperately wished to possess the pen that he had seen
only once, barely touching it, Loco-Solo finally does so shortly before his death, but
also shortly before the compiler’s foretold exile.1 6 When giving the pen to the
compiler, Loco-Solo warns him about the images he will see when writing with El
Supremo’s former pen: “Si llegas a escribir con la pluma, no leas lo que escribas.
Mira las figuras . . . que caen a los costados, entre los renglones y las palabras.
Veras amontonadas en racimos cosas terribles en lo sombrio que haran sudar y gritar
Veiy bad times await you, Carpincho [the compiler’s nickname]. You’re going to become a
migrant, a traitor, a deserter. They’re going to declare you an infamous traitor to the country. The
only recourse left you is to go on to the very end. Not stop halfway” (200).
1 “Go and start sharpening your little stick” (translation mine).
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hasta a los arboles podridos por el sol Y si sos hombre borra con tu sangre
la ultima palabra del pizarron...” (287).* Loco-Solo’s description of the things the
compiler would see suggests that the images the pen projects are still images that El
Supremo produced in writing, suffice it to remember that El Supremo is constantly
associated with obscurity. With the passing of time, however, the pen partially broke
down: “. . . hoy solo escribe con trazos muy gruesos que rasgan el papel borrando las
palabras al tiempo de escribirlas, proyectando sin cesar las mismas imageries mudas,
despojadas de su espacio sonoro” (283).* Like a broken projector that cannot but
reproduce the same mute images, the pen gives a certain projection, a continuation to
El Supremo’s phantasms.
In so doing, it perhaps confirms what El Supremo himself had foreshadowed
in relation to his phantasmatic persistence within the imaginary of Paraguayans:
“Lapida sera mi ausencia sobre este pobre pueblo que tendra que seguir respirando
bajo ella sin haber muerto por no haber nacido” (21).* Faced with an absence that is
most felt because it is transformed into a heavy-stone presence under which a whole
people lives as a phantasm, neither dead nor alive, how could one erase the last word
of this endlessly reproduced set of images and slurred traces that keep El Supremo
alive even after his death? Moreover, how could that be done when the compiler is
so fascinated with the pen, the projector of somber images, that he exclaims
childishly, “jEl maravilloso instrumento me pertenece!” (283)?§ And how could it be
* “If you manage to write with the Pen, don’t read what you write. Look at the . . . figures that fall to
the sides, between the lines and the words. You’ll see terrible things heaped up in bunches in the dark
that w ill make even the trees rotted by the sun sweat and scream And if you’re a man erase with
your blood the last word on the blackboard...” (201).
' “... today it writes only with very thick strokes that tear the paper, effacing words as it writes them,
endlessly projecting the same mute images stripped of their sonorous space” (198).
1 “My absence w ill be the gravestone over this poor people that w ill be obliged to go on breathing
beneath it without having died since it has yet to be born” (13).
§ “The marvelous instrument belongs to me!” (198).
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done if, in the compiler’s eyes, he must give in his authority as an author in order
to become a mere compiler, a copier, because the dictator fulfills precisely the
function of replacing writers, historians, artists, thinkers, etc. (620)? According to
Loco-Solo, that should be done through the shedding of the compiler’s blood,
perhaps through violent action that is not devoid of sacrificial undertones. The
compiler, however, appears to have chosen a different path.
If one must, as Loco-Solo suggests, go all the way through with one’s actions
and not stop halfway, the solution to the compiler appears to be an intensification of
his condition as a compiler. When reading the novel, we suddenly come across this
narrative figure and discover that every text we read has been put together by that
someone we call the compiler. So, as we reach the end of the novel, we also come
across a final note, written by the compiler and in which one would expect, as a
reader, that the very rationale behind his compilation or the art of doing the
necessary selections, cuts, arrangements, etc., should be explained. In a sense, that is
exactly what the compiler does, for he states that he has done nothing but “copiar
fielmente lo ya dicho y compuesto por otros” (619),* but he also make us notice that
“[n]o hay pues en la compilacion una sola pagina, una sola frase, una sola palabra,
desde el titulo hasta esta nota final, que no haya sido escrita de esa manera” (619). '
In a compilation in which even the notes the compiler had supposedly written are
nothing but copies, the figure of the author appears to have finally vanished from the
text, at the least from the text that we read as a compilation. In completely
disappearing, from the text, the author might ultimately have reached that state of
“insupremacy,” which the Dictator had recognized in the “spirit” of the unauthorized
* “faithfully cop[y] what has already been said and composed by others” (435).
1 “there is not a single page, a single sentence, a single word, from the title to this final note, that has
not been written in this way” (435).
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author of the false supreme decree. In this sense, the mise-en-abime structure
proposed at the end of the novel, in which the compiler’s note sends us to another
compiler’s note that sends us to another compiler’s note, ad infinitum, must be read
within the context of the novel. If so, the lack of authorship and authority that the
mise-en-abime structure suggests is re-signified as an inevitable disappearance, at
least on the author’s part. For, when they appropriate literary discourse, political
dictators may render the death of the Author into the death of the writer, hence
transforming a literary into a literal meaning.
But if the disappearance of the writer must be read quite literally, the literary
disappearance of the author and his authority seems to be just an apparent one. He is
soon reclaimed, and in several different forms.1 7 Within Spanish American literature,
one cannot think the question of the disappearance of the author without referring to
Jorge Luis Borges’s writings. As I have noted, Borges’s “Borges y yo” is a key text
to examine the relations between the real-life author and the public, impersonal
figure of the author, but it is also a text that, in this examination, points to the
disappearance of the author.1 8 As Kerr notes, in Borges’s text “the figure of the
author as a biographical person and private entity (‘yo ) is confounded with that of
the author as a literary personage and public character (‘Borges’)” (3). As if that
perplexity, on the narrator’s part, were not enough, the text ends in such a way that it
“generates a proliferation of authorial figures . . . and sites of authorship” (Kerr 2),
since, in its last sentence, there appears another narrative voice, another “I”: “No se
cual de los dos escribe esta pagina”.’ Likewise, in other stories Borges appears to
play with the limits of the concept of authorship and authority. Specifically, I have
in mind “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote” [“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”]
* “I don’t know which o f the two is writing this page” (2; Kerr’s translation).
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and “Las ruinas circulares” [“The Circular Ruins”], both of which were
published in Ficciones (1944).
In “Las ruinas circulares,” a man discovers that his “inmediata obligation”
[“immediate obligation”] (62/124) as a man was to dream, but not as any other
human being dreams at night. “Queria sonar un hombre: queria sonarlo con
integridad minuciosa e imponerlo a la realidad” (62).* With the help of a God,
whose earthly name was Fire, the dreamer is able to dream his man and bring him
into reality, but only to send him years later to one of the other circular ruins, so that
“alguna voz lo [the God] glorificara en aquel edificio desierto” (66).f As a sort of
payment for the God’s favor, the dreamer’s creation is finally sent away, but not
without first having his years of apprenticeship erased from his memory, “para que
no supiera nunca que era un fantasma” (67).1 In fact, the dreamer becomes
tormented with the idea that his “son,” as he calls his phantasmatic creation, should
discover that he was a “mero simulacra ..., la proyeccion del sueno de otro
hombre” (68).§ Abhorred with the idea, the dreamer exclaims: “jque humillacion
incomparable, que vertigo!” (68). Nonetheless, it appears that the phantasm
becomes more and more real, for “el hijo ausente se nutria de esas disminuciones de
su [the dreamer’s] alma” (67).** As in “Borges y yo,” in which the private “I”, the
real-life person feels as if he had been surrendering everything to the social phantasm
named “Borges,” the real-life dreamer appears to be losing reality to the
phantasmatic man. Ironically, he is the one who discovers, at the end of the story,
that he was a dream: “Con alivio, con humillacion, con terror, comprendio que el
“He wanted to dream a man; he wanted to dream him in minute entirety and impose him on reality”
(124). All translations to Borges’s texts are taken from Borges. A Reader, unless otherwise indicated.
1 “some voice would glorify him [the God] in that deserted edifice” (126).
1 “so that his son should never know that he was a phantom” (127).
s “mere simulacrum. . . , a projection of another man’s dreams” (127).
“his absent son was being nourished by these diminutions o f his [the dreamer’s] soul” (127).
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tambien era una apariencia, que otro estaba sonandolo” (69).* With the final
disclosure of the man’s real state as a phantasm among other phantasms, some of the
narrator’s statements read more ambiguously than one had initially thought. Who
was it, after all, that should not know he was a phantasm? Who had forgotten the
years of apprenticeship, when he was initiated into the rites of dreaming?
As in “Borges y yo” and “Las ruinas circulares,” in “Pierre Menard, autor del
Quijote” one also sees a displacement between figures of authorship and authority,
which is, evidently, already announced in the title of the story. Pierre Menard, the
narrator tells us, wished to write “unas paginas que coincidieran — palabra por
palabra y linea por linea — con las de Miguel de Cervantes” (52),+ but not, as he had
initially thought, as Cervantes himself would have written it. Menard abandons his
idea of a “total identification con un autor determinado” (53);* he gives up being
Cervantes and prefers, instead, to arrive at Don Quixote through his own
experiences. A lifespan, however, was too short for such an enterprise, and Menard
only left behind two chapters and a fragment of a third one. Even though Menard’s
and Cervantes’s texts are literally identical, Menard’s is, according to the narrator,
more subtle, “casi infinitamente mas rico” (56-57)§ and, therefore, more ambiguous.
In fact, one may read in Menard’s text (if one is a shrewd reader) echoes of Julien
Benda, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, and William James; one finds in his text, as
opposed to Cervantes’s praise to History, the idea that “[l]a verdad historica . . . no
es lo que sucedio; es lo que juzgamos que sucedio” (57),** all of which could only
“With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone
else was dreaming him” (127).
1 “pages which would coincide - word for word and line for line — with those of Miguel de
Cervantes” (99).
* “total identification with a specific author” (99).
5 “almost infinitely richer” (101).
“Historical truth... is not what took place; it is what we think took place” (102).
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have come to a twentieth-century mind. In this sense, as the narrator points out,
the “final” Don Quixote is a kind of palimpsest, in which one might still detect traces
of Menard’s writing (58/102).
Had he been immortal and, in his immortality, found the necessary time to
write Don Quixote. Menard might have become, as the title of the story suggests, the
author of the Quixote. But that would have entailed, contraiy to what we read
throughout the story, the inscription of an authorial difference, which constitutes, in
Menard’s search for his authorial voice, an act of symbolic violence. In a
parenthesis, which we as readers tend to ignore precisely because of the narrator’s
insistence on the literal identity between Menard’s and Cervantes’s texts, we read
that Menard had suppressed the autobiographical prologue to the second part of the
novel. One must bear in mind, as we have noted, that Menard wished to arrive at
Don Quixote through his own experiences, and, “[i]ncluir ese prologo,” says the
narrator, “hubiera sido crear otro personaje — Cervantes — pero tambien hubiera
significado presentar el Quijote en fimcion de ese personaje y no de Menard” (53).*
If autobiographical texts should be, by definition, the closer a speaker may get, in
writing, to the lines that his life and experiences have inscribed in him, could we not
see in Menard’s suppression, but also in the apparent death of the author that
Borges’s text doubly represents, the symbolic murder of an author?
At the end of his now canonical essay, “The Death of the Author” (1968),
Roland Barthes affirms that “the birth of the reader must be requited by the death of
the Author” (55), which is, in a sense, what occurs in Borges’s story, but not only in
the manner in which Barthes thinks the birth of the reader. Even though the narrator
“To include this prologue would have meant creating another personage — Cervantes — but it would
also have meant presenting Don Quixote in relation to this personage and not Menard” (translation
mine, slightly modified from the one found in Borges. A Reader in order to remain closer to the
original).
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states that Menard has contributed to the art of reading by forging a new
technique, that of deliberate anachronism and erroneous attributions (59/103); and
even if one only has access to Menard’s authorial voice in Don Quixote through the
narrator’s reading of it, the birth of that reader in Borges’s text is not exactly that
utopian point where no one speaks, that “man without history, without biography,
without psychology” that Barthes envisages (“Death” 54).
The narrator, in Borges’s story, is one of Menard’s “amigos autenticos”
[“true friends”] (47/96) and he seems to have been impelled to write the text we read
by the publication of a catalog of Menard’s opera omnia, which, according to the
narrator, presented “imperdonables . .. omisiones y adiciones” (47).* He feels that
not much time has elapsed since the “true friends” gathered “ante el marmol final. . .
y ya el Error trata de empanar su [Menard’s] Memoria...” (47)/ His objective, in
writing his “note,” is thus quite clear: “Decididamente, una breve rectification es
inevitable” (47),* a rectification that might not only correct the omissions and
additions in the catalog, but also oppose those who “calumnian su [Menard’s] clara
memoria”§ by stating that Menard wished to write a contemporary version of
Cervantes’s novel (52/99) and those who, not so shrewdly, read in Menard’s text
merely a transcription of that of Cervantes (56/101). The narrator confesses,
however, that “es muy facil recusar [su] pobre autoridad” (47),** and he recurs then
to what he calls “dos altos testimonios” [“two important testimonials”]: the Baroness
de Bacourt, “en cuyos vendredis inolvidables tuv[o] el honor de conocer al llorado
* “unforgivable . . . omissions and additions” (translation mine).
1 “before the final marble ..., and already error is trying to tarnish his [Menard’s] memory” (97).
' “Decidedly, a brief rectification is inevitable” (97).
§ “slander his [Menard’s] illustrious memory” (translation mine).
” “it would be very easy to challenge [his] meager authority” (97).
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poeta,”* and the Countess de Bagnoregio, “uno de los esplritus mas finos del
principado de Monaco,”^ who married “el filantropo intemacional Simon Kautzsch,
tan calumniado, jay!, por las victimas de sus desinteresadas maniobras,”* and
published in the magazine Luxe a letter supporting the narrator (48).
Whether we choose, as the narrator does, to see these “ejecutorias”
[“accomplishments”] as sufficient support for his lacking authority (48/97), or see
them, as Borges does, somewhat ironically, we must inevitably recognize, as both
the narrator and Borges do, albeit through different manners, that the establishment
of an authoritative voice is also what is at stake in acts of writing and reading. But,
precisely because the act of writing is accompanied by that of reading (that is,
because writing and reading are social acts of production and consumption), such an
authoritative voice has been spread out among different speakers, different social
agents. In effect, one might read “Las ruinas circulares” as a metaphor for such
distribution of authority, for what we encounter at the end of the story is an
uncountable number of dreamers who are also phantasms within another dreamer’s
dream. Borges, in other words, imaginatively composes for us a story through which
we can metaphorically comprehend the web of relations that constitute the social
world, and in which we are all, at the same time, producers of phantasms and subject
to phantasmalization. In “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote,” the death of the author
is not, in this sense, the birth of the reader, but rather the birth of readers, of specific
sets of readers who, because of their group investment in the name of an author, may
speak on behalf of the dead author with authority.
* “at whose unforgettable vendredis [he] had the honor of becoming acquainted with the late lamented
poet” (97).
' “one of the most refined minds in the principality o f Monaco” (97).
* “the international philanthropist Simon Kautsch [sic] who, alas, has been so slandered by the victims
o f his disinterested handiwork” (97).
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Among these sets of investors, the author, no longer as a figure, but the
social agent who is also an author, that is, the person/author who is accountable for
the texts we read under a particular name, starts to reappear within the text,
understood here as a cultural good whose symbolic value is socially produced.1 9
Within this frame, the person/author is called to respond, at least in part, for the
production of the text, as is evident in Roa Bastos’s “El autor como lector de su
obra” [“The Author as Reader of His Work”]. Bearing the name of an author who
should have disappeared, Roa Bastos cannot but begin his essay by posing to himself
the question of how an author can talk, with any authority, about his work: “^Que es
lo que se pretende o que es lo que puede esperarse de el como lector de su obra?
oQue la explique? de production del sentido, de las significaciones encerradas en la obra? ^Que nos
entregue las remanencias, los residuos que han podido quedar de su elaboration? 6Lo
no dicho, lo no inscrito, lo indecible?” (30).* Although Roa Bastos states that “el
autor es el unico que no puede hablar de su obra, en ningun sentido” (30), ' he does
seem to find a way of speaking about his work without, apparently, recurring to the
authority of his authorial voice. He does so by talking about Kafka who, as a reader
of Cervantes, talks about Sancho Panza and his relation to Don Quixote; he does so
by talking about Borges who writes as if someone were writing about Pierre Menard,
also a reader of Cervantes and supposedly author of Don Quixote. In other words, an
author may talk about his work without using his authorial voice if he engages in the
“What is intended by or what can one expect from him as reader of his works? That he should
explain them? That he should perform him self the dissection and the analysis o f the mechanisms of
production of meaning, o f the signification shut within those works? That he should give us the
remnants, the residues that may have been left from his elaboration? The unsaid, the unwritten, the
unspeakable?” (translation mine).
t “the author is the only person who cannot talk about his works, in no sense whatsoever” (translation
mine).
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web of social relations, in which social agents may conjure up phantasms,
deceased authors who may authoritatively speak for them. In this sense, the
Borgesian displacement of authors we see at the end of Roa Bastos’s Yo. el supremo
functions, to a certain degree, as a form of transference, inasmuch as the authorial
authority that apparently disappears in the novel reappears, in part, through the
author Borges.
Ultimately, the infinite displacement of authorial voices constitutes, within
and around Yo. el supremo, a second perpetual circular, which is not as visible as
that of El Supremo, but nonetheless retraceable. It corresponds to the crisscrossed
group investments and counter-investments and to the possible recognition that
constitutes the symbolic value of a work of art. It is within this perpetual circular,
characteristic of the social world, that we may finally see what Roa Bastos or the
compiler had been constructing so elaborately throughout the novel: the phantasm of
El Supremo, or perhaps El Supremo as a phantasm. In his final note to his “work,”
the compiler states that “los personajes y hechos que figuran en ellos [his Notes] han
Ganado, por fatalidad del lenguaje escrito, el derecho a una existencia ficticia y
autonoma al servicio del no menos ficticio y autonomo lector” (620).* If we are to
believe in the compiler’s words, that which El Supremo feared the most was finally
realized, namely, that he too should be turned into a phantasm whose actions and
images are nothing but a falsification of the real. El Supremo’s phantasm of
phantasmalization materialized. But what could we say of the compiler’s phantasm
of phantasmalization, which appears to be so believable for those who fear and wish
to reject, as both Roa Bastos and the compiler do, their own subjection to the
“the characters and facts that figure in them [his Notes] have earned, through the fatality o f the
written language, the right to a fictitious and autonomous existence in the service o f the no less
fictitious and autonomous reader” (435).
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different forms of phantasmalization that may take place during dictatorial
regimes? When the compiler took up his pen to arrange all the texts we read, El
Supremo was already, to a great extent, a fictional figure. Having disappeared as a
real-life person, El Supremo was nothing but a cluster of often contradictory images
and representations, which the compiler merely puts together. In this sense, the
compiler’s apparently relinquished authority may easily be reclaimed, even if by
yielding it, for it is circumscribed to the field of literary production, in which the
death of the Author has gained so much currency in the past decades. But what
happens when the supreme political representative is not as yet that Active? What
happens to the exile’s phantasm of phantasmalization when that supreme being is
still a real-life person, a social agent with the power that his position within the
political field affords him? What happens when we force our phantasms to move
outside the specific limits of the literary field?
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Notes
1
When critics read Roa Bastos’s novel in relation to other “novelas de la
dictadura,” they often compare it to Alejo Carpentier’s El recurso del metodo and to
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s El otono del patriarca, which were published in 1974 and
1975, respectively. Two of the most important essays on this comparison are Gerald
Martin’s “Yo. el supremo: The Dictator and His Script” and Roberto Gonzalez
Echevarria’s “The Dictatorship of Rhetoric/The Rhetoric of Dictatorship,” which
point to almost antagonistic readings of Roa Bastos’s novel: a Marxist and a post
structuralist one, respectively. See also Martin’s explicit reply to Gonzalez
Echevarria’s essay, “On Dictatorship and Rhetoric in Latin American Writing. A
Counter-Proposal. ”
2
Ruben Bareiro Saguier also observes that El Supremo, as Roa Bastos
suggests, understood dictatorship in its Roman sense, not in the contemporary one
(“Historia” 38), and Angel Rama notes that if one may include El Supremo among
the gallery of Latin American dictators because of the formal aspects of his power,
its content and historical context suggest that El Supremo should be seen according
to different categories. One should take into account the transplantation of Roman
law, under the influence of the French Revolution (and also the Napoleonic Code,
one might add), to the new, emerging American republics (“El dictador letrado”
402).
3
References to contemporary dictatorships are not necessarily confined to
Stroessner’s government in Paraguay. In fact, in his omniscient leaps into the future,
El Supremo at one point uses words from Geraldo Vandre’s song “Pra nao dizer que
nao falei de flores” [“Don’t Say I Didn’t Speak of Flowers”] in addressing the
Brazilian commisioner Correia da Camara (Roa Bastos, Yo. el supremo 338).
Vandre’s song, composed in 1968, was part of a wave of protest songs that came
about during the military dictatorship and was widely known for encouraging
Brazilians to participate actively in the country’s historical and political
development.
4 In the edition of Yo. el supremo that Milagres Ezquerro prepared for
Catedra, she points out, in a note, that all of the texts quoted in the Appendix are
“authentic,” insofar as the compiler modified none of them (597, n. 699).
5
This sort of coincidence between the images of El Supremo and Stroessner
as dictators is further emphasized if one brings the very figure of the author into
one’s reading of the novel. For Augusto Roa Bastos himself, in two of his political
essays against Stroessner’s regime, reutilizes terms that defined El Supremo in the
novel — “supremo” and “mano tiranosauria” [“tyrannosauric hand”] (Roa Bastos,
Yo. el supremo 174) — in order to characterize Stroessner. He therefore reinforces
and makes explicit in both “Stroessner, el supremo” (1984) and El tiranosaurio del
Paraguay da sus ultimas boqueadas (1986) the identification that he suggests in the
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novel between El Supremo and Stroessner, but one that the reader would have,
previously, to perceive in between the lines. In El tiranosaurio del Paraguay.
however, Roa Bastos explains that his intent in using the term “tiranosaurio” was to
define “la monstruosidad del poder totalitario erigido en tirania ‘constitucional’”
[“the monstrosity of a totalitarian power established as a ‘constitutional’ tyranny”]
[Tiranosaurio 33), which, within the context of the novel
or the essay, may be applied to either Francia or Stroessner.
6
In Spanish, “punto” means both “period” and “point.” It is clear that El
Supremo is extremely skeptical of the power of words, for he states that, not feeling
so secure about the power of his pen, he arms his soldiers with rifles and cartridges
(362). In a similar vein, El Supremo states, before a congress of notables that would
decide the future of the ex-province, that his arguments in favor of the independence
of Paraguay were two guns, which he immediately pulls out. One is against
Fernando VII, and the other, against Buenos Aires (135). After independence, it was
still armed force that guaranteed El Supremo’s command over the nation. With the
ten rifles that were manufactured out of the meteorite that fell in the Chaco region,
he says, the leaders of the conspiracy of 1820 were executed, and he adds: “Desde
entonces estos fusiles ponen punto final a las parrafadas eversoras. Fini-quitan de un
solo tiro a los infames traidores a la Patria y al Gobierno” [“Since then it is these
rifles that are used to put a period, a full stop to eversive blather. They finiquidate
the infamous
traitors to the Fatherland and the Government with a single shot”] (144/101).
7
For a discussion of the concept of delegated power, see Bourdieu’s
“Authorized Language” and “Delegation and Political Fetishism” in Language and
Symbolic Power.
8
As a “conductor,” El Supremo is inevitably associated, in contemporary
readers’ minds, with other political figures such as “il Duce” and the “Fiihrer.”
9
The idea that El Supremo, as Head of the State and Nation, acts as a father
is reproduced in the discourse of other characters within the novel, such as in the
conversation between don Mateo Fleitas, one of the Dictator’s ex-scripts, and Patino,
the actual script (41), or in the letter that the major of Villa Franca sends to the
Dictator (19-20). Ideologically, the politcal concept of a Head of State who
functions as a father, presiding over his “children,” is still current. Bergero, for
instance, mentions what she calls El Supremo’s “advertencias y temura de padre,
lucidamente alarmado” [“warnings and tenderness of a father, lucidly alarmed”] (1).
10
The novel begins, as we have seen, with an example, even though falsified,
of the Dictator’s power to order — “Yo el Supremo Dictator de la Republica ordeno
que...” [“I the Supreme Dictator of the Republic order that...”] (7/3) --, a power that
extends itself from the political to the personal level. In the dialogue that follows the
text of the falsified decree and which involves El Supremo and Patino (his script),
the Dictator’s sentences are marked by an imperative form, whose implicit power
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203
relation El Supremo turns, at one point, explicit: “Te he ordenado simplemente
que me traigas el legajo de Mariano Antonio Molas” [“I merely ordered you to bring
me the file on Mariano Antonio Molas”] (8/4). Throughout the novel, El Supremo’s
discourse is punctuated with orders that must be executed, mainly in
his dialogues with Patino.
11
In recalling the trip he made with his father to the Colegio Real, El
Supremo notes that he was, in relation to his father, “un ser ridiculo, monstruoso” [“a
ridiculous, monstruous creature”] (406/283) and “un objeto de su inquina, de sus
vociferaciones, de sus castigos” [“an object of his hatred, of his angry shouts, of his
punishments”] (407/283). One might thus say that the child’s and the man’s
rejection of his father was the father’s rejection of his son and that, in order to
become a political father, El Supremo had to overcome this rejection.
12
El Supremo’s recounting of Patino’s story is also a perfect description of
the experience of exile, which will become evident in the chapter in which I analyze
Roa Bastos’s essays.
1 3 In Spanish American literature, the key text for a discussion on this
distinction between the person and the public figure is Jorge Luis Borges’s “Borges y
yo” [“Borges and I”]. Borges’s text also suggests that the person and the public
figure intertwine and become somewhat indistinguishable. As in “Borges y yo,” in
Roa Bastos’s novel the “I” is destined to disappear into the “He,” although one and
the other never coincide completely.
1 4 In both Aura (1962) and La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962), Carlos
Fuentes also uses this technique of a narrative voice in the second person singular in
order to suggest a split subjectivity. Through this narrative voice, the subject is able
to recount what he, as an “I,” cannot or would rather not tell.
1 5 In a conversation with Pilar, one of El Supremo’s scripts prior to Patino,
the Dictator tells him that “[e]n cada cosa hay oculto un significado. En cada
hombre un signo” [“A meaning is hidden in each thing. A sign in each man”]
(542/379). In hearing that, Pilar responds: “Para mi, que su signo es usted mismo,
Senor” [“To me, your sign is your very self, Sire”] (542/379; slightly modified
translation). Perhaps a form of flattery, Pilar’s commentary indicates nonetheless
that one of El Supremo’s image is precisely that of a subject, a speaker, and a social
agent who can make do without language and its mimetic forms, becoming himself
his own sign.
1 6 As the compiler himself remarks, the year Loco-Solo gave him the pen was
1947, “en visperas del Exodo que comenzo en marzo” [“on the eve of the Exodus
that began in March”] (285/199), which, as I have mentioned, coincides
biographically with the year Roa Bastos’s long exile began.
1 7 The notion of reclaiming the author is borrowed from Kerr.
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204
1 8 As Kerr notes, one might see Borges as the precursor, in Borges’s own
sense of the term, of both Barthes’s and Foucault’s ideas on the question of
authorship (5). See also Rodriguez Monegal’s “Borges and La Nouvelle Critique”
on the relations between Borges’s texts and French theory.
1 9 In other words, one must see a text as the sum of the text plus its readings
plus the investments that different agents, occupying different positions within a
specific literary field, make into that text and its author.
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5. Sem- + -Cerus: Graciliano Ramos’s Sincerity
205
Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we
can multiply our personalities.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
While critics have focused on Graciliano Ramos, the author, a certain image
of Graciliano Ramos, the person, has also gradually emerged. In fact, Graciliano
Ramos, author and person, may have been, since Ramos’s first novel was published,
parallel constructions, as Valdemar Cavalcanti’s review of Caetes suggests. Author
and person became, along the years, somewhat enmeshed, leading to an image of
sincerity, evinced in Clara Ramos’s subtitle for her biography of her father:
“confirmagao humana de uma obra.”* In this chapter, I reconstruct the sincere image
— and what is left outside of it - which constitutes one aspect of the effectivity of
Ramos’s concept of phantasmal characters. I begin this chapter by retracing that
concept, which appears in both a discourse that Ramos wrote as a member of the
Brazilian Communist Party and in his essay “O fator economico no romance
brasileiro” [“Economic Factors in Brazilian Novels”] (1945). In trying to think the
effectivity of Ramos’s concept, I came upon a question that Leticia Malard poses in
relation to Ramos’s essay and which serves as a starting point because she wonders
about the objectives of the essay. Nonetheless, because she poses the question in
terms of intention, she cannot account for effects that result from investments, not
personal intentions. I use as an example of these effects Ramos’s well-known self
devaluation, to which Malard refers as a way of dismissing her own question.
“human confirmation of a work.”
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206
What matters most in Malard’s text, however, is that it brings to the front
not only Ramos’s sincerity, but also how it partakes of the effectivity of Ramos’s
concept of phantasmal characters, which is at the core of his essay. As we shall see,
in the case of Ramos sincerity must be understood as a sincere depiction of social
reality as well as a sincere image in which author and person are enmeshed. I shall
analyze both of these aspects and point out the different pseudonyms Ramos used,
but which remained “hidden” for several years after his death. I end this first part of
the chapter commenting on Lucia Miguel Pereira’s idea of the “fundos de gaveta,”*
writings that only come to light after the author’s death and which may alter his or
her image. Since Ramos’s bottom-of-the-drawer writings also remained unknown
for many years, a sincere image emerged more easily. In the following parts, I
retrace Ramos’s heterogeneous investments in different literary aesthetics and
genres.
In the second part of this chapter, I focus on how Ramos’s juvenile writings
are informed by a Romantic aesthetics, which is evident in the journal Ramos edited
with his cousin, titled O diluculo [Dawn], The choice of the title itself points to the
Romantic fixation with childhood, which, as a moment of happiness, contrast with
the disillusionment of adulthood. The topos of disillusionment appears in Ramos’s
first piece, “Pequeno pedinte” [“Little Beggar”], published in O diluculo. Although
Ramos states in his memoirs Infancia [Childhood] (1945) that his literary mentor had
greatly altered his text, the fact remains that Ramos would be publishing Romantic
poems a few years later. In these poems, he uses several Romantic topoi. such as the
impermanence of things and the love lost, leading the poet to welcome phantasms.
* “bottom of the drawer.”
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In the last part, I retrace the investments that Ramos made in different
forms of writing after he moved to Rio de Janeiro, including the articles he wrote for
different newspapers and in which he displays an ironic vein. Although biographical
facts and changes in poetic aesthetics distanced him from literature and turned late
Romantic poetry less current, a Romantic aesthetics does not disappear altogether
from Ramos’s writings. In his love letters to Heloisa, Ramos displays the sensibility
and use certain topoi of Romanticism, seeing ghosts, just as the poet Ramos did. I
end this chapter pointing out how pseudonymity and privacy are strategies that a
writer may use to produce either a sincere or an insincere authorial figure. Within
the insincere Graciliano Ramos, phantasmal characters must be resituated.
5.1. Phantasmal Characters and the Sincere Author
In a speech written for the Brazilian Communist Party, Graciliano Ramos
attempts to answer the question of “[cjomo podem servir ao Partido os trabalhadores
intelectuais” (‘“ Aqui trazemos’” 1).* He begins by making two observations: first,
that one must distinguish between those intellectuals “que se dedicam a erudi9ao”t
and those who veer towards fictional creation; and second, that “o artista e um
trabalhador solitario” (1).* Although Ramos recognizes that “[h]a quem diga que
isto sucede por nao estar[em] [os artistas] identificados com a massa,”§ he affirms
that such an idea is “inaccurate,” in that it fosters a confusion between subject and
object. “Sem duvida,” he states, “e necessario conhecermos e sentirmos a materia de
que nos ocupamos. Para transformarmos em obra de arte uma cadeia ou uma
* “how intellectual workers may be useful to the Party.”
' “devote themselves to erudition.”
* “the artist is a solitary worker.”
§ “some say that such solitude is due to the fact that artists are not identified with the masses.”
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208
fabrica, por exemplo, e indispensavel termos vivido em algum desses lugares”
(1).* Nonetheless, he adds, “uma coisa e falar aos cabras do eito, ao moleque
empregado em langar bagago na fomalha, outra coisa e atirar essa gente no papel,
faze-la mexer-se direito” (l).1 For, in order that artists may do so, certain conditions
for artistic production must be met. Ramos says:
Dormimos na esteira do carcere, familiarizamo-nos com as maquinas, volvemos
a direita ou a esquerda, em obediencia a voz do instrutor, nos exercicios
militares, fomos particulas da multidao; achamo-nos, entretanto, fora dela no ato
da criagao artistica; nessa hora estamos sos, de pijama e chinelos, em silencio:
temos horror as campainhas, ao telefone, ao proximo. (2)*
For Ramos, the discrepancy between the artist’s exchanges in his general social
practices and his solitude in the specific act of writing is marked by a
“disintegration,” which is inevitable inasmuch as “ate se nos ocupamos de nos
mesmos, se fazemos autobiografia, desdobramo-nos, somos, por assim dizer, o nosso
proprio objeto. Afinal isto sempre ocorre, pois o mundo exterior nao nos surge
diretamente, e, observando-o, o que em ultima analise fazemos e examinar-nos” (2).§
In this sense, Ramos affirms that “toda literatura de ficgao e introspectiva, pois
somos espelhos da natureza” (2).**
Based upon this concept of an always mediated apprehension of the physical
world, Ramos criticizes what he calls “uma literatura presumidamente misteriosa,
* “No doubt,” he states, “we must know and feel the subject matter that is our focus. In order to turn a
prison or a factory into a work of art, for instance, it becomes vital that we have lived in one of these
places.”
“one thing is to speak to workers in the plantation fields, to the boy who is hired to throw the
bagasse into the furnace; another, to cast these people onto paper, to make them move well.”
1 “We slept on the prison mat; we familiarized ourselves with the machines; we turned right and left,
obeying the instructor’s voice in the military trainings; we have been particles of the crowd;
nonetheless, we find ourselves outside o f it in the act o f artistic creation; that is the moment when we
are by ourselves, in pajamas and slippers, enjoying silence: we abhor bells, telephones, and fellow
beings.”
§ “even when we’re focusing on ourselves, when we write autobiography, we are split; we are our
own objects, so-to-speak. That always happens, after all, for the outer world does not appear to us
directly, and, in observing it, what we ultimately do is to analyze ourselves.”
* ’ “any fictional text is introspective, for we are the mirrors of nature.”
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209
sombria, infernal, que abusa das palavras misterio. sombra e infemo. mas onde
nao percebemos misterio, nem sombra, nem inferno” (I).* According to him,
“[f]iliaram-se a ela talentos disponiveis, mobilizaram-se recrutas ineditos,
escondidos em cidadezinhas” (1).' These mysterious writers “reciprocaram vastos
elogios, e, sempre misteriosamente umbrosos e infemais, condenaram a novela de
costumes, o estudo social, o documento” (1).* “Na verdade,” he adds, “pretendiam
anular o fator economico, fugir a materialismos inconvenientes - e em consequencia
apresentaram-nos fantasmas e proclamaram-se donos do romance introspectivo” (1).§
Ramos maintains, on the contrary, that “o mundo subjetivo nao exclui o objetivo;. . .
baseia-se nele; e se dispensarmos o fato concreto, so nos restarao falsidades” (2),**
which he ironically defines as “doubtful mysteries, vain shadows, and glacial hells”
(2).' Bearing in mind Ramos’s addressees, one might read in his discourse a sort of
Marxist twist to the realist attention to the social and physical world, which is clearly
articulated in “O fator economico no romance brasileiro,” republished in Linhas
2
tortas in 1962.
In this essay, Ramos conflates an “observagao cuidadosa dos fatos” (246)+ +
with the Marxist concept of base and superstructure and its almost geological
metaphor for understanding society in terms of a layered structure. In analyzing
what he perceives as a lack in Brazilian novels, Ramos reproaches most novelists
* “a supposedly mysterious, somber, hellish literature that overused the words mystery, shadow, and
hell, but where one cannot perceive either mystery, shadow, or hell.”
t “many available talents were affiliated with this literature, and many new recruits, hidden in small
towns, were mobilized.”
1 “flattered each other profusely, and, always mysteriously somber and hellish, they condemned the
novel o f mores, the social study, the documentary narrative.”
§ “In fact,” he adds, “they intended to annul the economic factor, to escape from an inconvenient
materialism - and, as a consequence, they showed us phantasms and proclaimed themselves owners
o f the introspective novel.”
“the subjective world does not exclude the objective one;... it is based on it; and if we do away
with concrete fact, we shall be left only with falseness.”
“a keen observation of facts.”
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(the exceptions being the early Jose Lins do Rego and the late Jorge Amado) for
leaving to “outras profissoes tudo quanto se refere a economia” (246). As a
consequence, “fizeram uma construsao de cima para baixo, ocuparam-se de questoes
sociais e questSes politicas, sem notar que elas dependiam de outras mais profundas,
que nao podiam deixar de ser examinadas” (246-47; emphasis mine) ' Taking
Balzac as a contrastive example, Ramos affirms that, “[ljevantada [a] base
economica, e que principia a mover-se a sociedade balzaquiana . . (247).* In the
absence of an economic base, readers cannot see, in Brazilian novels, characters in
the act of producing wealth. Instead, “[a] riqueza surge criada, como nas historias
maravilhosas, faz-nos pensar no deserto, onde o povo eleito recebia alimento do ceu.
Torna-se irreal, misteriosa — e como e indispensavel a existencia humana, irrealidade
e misterio transmitem-se aos individuos que circulam na maior parte dos livros
nacionais” (248).§ Once again, Ramos ends up concluding that “[a]bandonando os
fatos objetivos, investigando exclusivamente o interior dos seus tipos, alguns
escritores geraram uma fauna de seres estranhos em que ha um pouco de homens,
muito de espiritos e demonios” (249).**
Even though Ramos’s concept of the characters in Brazilian novels as
phantasms, spirits, or demons may be socially and politically justifiable, it becomes
more problematic, from a literary point of view, if we understand literary production
* “other occupations everything that refers to economy.”
r “their construction is from the top down; they dealt with social and political questions without
noticing that they depended on more profound questions that they could not leave unexamined”
(emphasis mine).
1 “only after the economic base is constructed is that Balzac’s society begins to function.”
5 “wealth appears to us already created, as in marvelous stories, and it makes us think of the desert, the
elected people who received food from heaven. It becomes unreal, mysterious, and, since it is
indispensable to human existence, unreality and mystery are transmitted to the individuals who exist
in the majority of our books.”
* * “abandoning objective facts, investigating only the inner side o f their types, some writers have
generated a fauna o f strange beings in which there are a few men, but many spirits and demons.”
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211
as necessarily detached from the real. Why should novelists, after all, seek this
supposedly complete novel in which economic factors play a fundamental role? And
why should characters unrelated to economic factors be the phantasmal ones? Are
not all characters, as fictional inventions, phantasms? In view of the fact that Ramos
attempts to establish a distinction between phantasmal and non-phantasmal
characters — a distinction that appears to be problematic — , how can one account for
the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of phantasmal characters? I would argue that this
effectivity is due, in part, to the image of Graciliano Ramos as a sincere author, as
Leticia Malard’s Ensaio de literatura brasileira fEssav of Brazilian Literaturel (1976)
evinces.
In commenting on Ramos’s “O fator economico no romance brasileiro,”
Malard asks herself: “O objetivo dessa cronica nao foi subestimar os autores
contemporaneos, valorizando o autor sua propria obra?” (12).* Could not readers,
she suggests, distrustfully and perhaps even maliciously wonder if Ramos is not
simply attempting to valorize his own literary production (and hence his concept of
phantasmal characters) in relation to that of other novelists? With this question,
Malard might be responding to the problem of the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of
phantasmal characters. She notes, however, that Ramos “parecia nao acreditar ter
realizado o que pregava” (12),* and she supports her assertion by quoting Ramos
himself in an interview in which he states that his work “Nao vale nada; a rigor, ja
desapareceu” (12).* Although, as it is well-known, Ramos obsessively devalued his
own literary production during his life time, thus confirming Malard’s statement, the
idea of self-depreciation as the objective of Ramos’s essay implies an intentionality
“Was not the objective o f this essay to underestimate contemporary authors and to valorize the
author’s own production?”
* “apparently did not believe he had realized what he proposed.”
* “is worth nothing; in fact, it has already disappeared.”
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212
that only malicious readers can reveal, precisely because they are able to perceive
behind the author’s professed self-depreciation an opposite purpose. However, since
Malard poses her question in terms of intention, it cannot encompass effects that are
the result of investments, not personal objectives.
In fact, Malard’s text itself evinces these unintentional effects, for she states,
immediately after Ramos’s remark that his work is worth nothing, that “Cada vez
mais os leitores e a critica tern reformulado esta declara?ao pessimista e
sinceramente modesta” (12; emphasis mine).* What, in Ramos’s eyes, should have
disappeared, reappears when critics reformulate his affirmations. Contrary to what
the writer may have claimed, his negative view of his works has reinforced their
appreciation. For, as long as it is not a “falsa modestia” [“false modesty”] — as
Ramos himself notes in a letter to Antonio Candido (qtd. in Candido, Ficqao 7) — ,
but a “sincere” form of correcting an immoderation, negative appraisals appear to be
closer to a “real” value. Although one might say that any writer’s statements on
literature may produce the same effect, for their writings are always an example of
the type of literature they sustain, what matters in Malard’s question is not only that
it more clearly evinces the question of the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of
phantasmal characters, but also that it points to the fact that sincerity is part and
parcel of that effectivity.
In the case of Graciliano Ramos, we must understand “sincerity” in two
different manners. First, in terms of faithfulness to Brazil’s social reality, which
gradually became current among Brazilian intellectuals from at least late nineteenth
century onwards (see, for example, Candido’s testimony in Ficpao e confissao [96;
105]). Within this intellectual frame, Malard opens her study with an epigraph taken
* “Readers and critics have reformulated this pessimist and sincerely modest affirmation.”
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213
from Josue de Castro’s Documentario do Nordeste [Report on the Northeast]
(1959).3 For Castro, and this is the excerpt that serves as epigraph in Malard’s essay,
“[ajrtisticamente, pouco importa que eles [Brazilian novelists] sejam socialistas ou
democratas, comunistas ou catolicos, desde que mostrem sinceramente a realidade
brasileira. Com esta sinceridade que arrasta naturalmente o drama a uma expressao
lirica impressionante” (qtd. in Malard 11).* Since attention to social reality has been
an important element within Brazilian cultural production, other critics have also
pointed out Ramos’s sincerity, which appears to them as the writer’s honesty.4
For both Floriano Gonsalves and Antonio Candido, for example, Ramos
produced an honest view of life. Gongalves emphatically states that “[n]ao ha
demagogias inuteis e falsas no tom da analise de Graciliano Ramos . . ,,”+ but rather
the “amargo criterio de honestidade com que ele levanta a vida em seus livros” (30).*
And Candido asserts that “a seca lucidez do estilo, o travo acre do temperamento, a
coragem da exposigao deram alcance duradouro a uma das visoes mais honestas que
a nossa literatura produziu do homem e da vida” (“Ficgao” 70).§ For the first critic,
however, honesty is also a characteristic of Ramos’s style, evident in Caetes. which
“mostra os valores de ritmo, de pureza, a honestidade de eleifao da palavra, que
serao valores dominantes da obra do romancista” (42),** and in Angustia. where
Ramos “e ainda o escritor seguro e original, cioso da palavra honesta e justa, sobrio
“artistically, it matters little that they [Brazilian novelists] be socialists or democrats, communists or
Catholics, as long as they sincerely show Brazil’s reality, with this sincerity that naturally turns drama
into an impressive lyric expression.”
7 “[tjhere is no useless and false demagogy in the tone o f Graciliano Ramos’s analyses.”
1 “bitter criterion o f honesty with which he depicts life in his books.”
5 “the dry lucidity o f his style, the acrid taste o f his temperament and the courage in expression gave a
lasting importance to one o f the most honest visions that our literature has produced of man and life.”
“show the value o f rhythm, purity, and honesty in word choice, which w ill be the dominant values
in the works of the novelist.”
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214
no ritmo e na medida da frase, directo, correcto” (64).* Finally, Octavio de Faria
perceives Ramos’s honesty in relation to his first book of memoirs, Infancia
rChildhoodl (1945). In this book, Faria says, the novelist reproduces his childhood
experiences “com o maximo de honestidade e rigor literario” (182)/ Moreover, he
affirms that “[o] mesmo rigor que [Ramos] tern em relagao aos outros, observa-o em
relagao a si mesmo, a pureza do seu testemunho, sempre integralmente honesto”
(186)^ That Faria should see Ramos’s memoirs through the lenses of honesty points
to the second type of sincerity, namely, that of the person himself, whose image
becomes enmeshed with that of the writer’s works. In the case of Graciliano Ramos,
this sincerity between the writer and his works is particularly evident in the notion of
Ramos’s dry style, as Valdemar Cavalcanti’s review of Caetes suggests.
In “No aparecimento de Caetes.” Candido notes that Cavalcanti identifies
Ramos by means of certain characteristics, such as his “‘secura da fala’” [‘“ dryness
in speech’”] (96-97)5 As Candido points out, Cavalcanti splits this characteristic
into two contrasting images: “‘a sua magrem de ossos de fora’”§ and ‘“banha nao e
sinal de saude’” (97).** But are they images that identify the writer as an author or as
the real-life person? In his review, Cavalcanti actually states that “tambem em
literatura a banha nao e sinal de saude” (emphasis mine),^ which points to two
correlated notions. If, on the one hand, it indicates that Cavalcanti is using those
images, metaphorically, to characterize Ramos’s literary production, it suggests, on
the other hand, that there is indeed a possible analogy between a writer’s literary
“is still the confident and original writer, zealous of the honest and just word, restrained in the
rhythm and length of his sentences, direct, correct.”
1 “with the maximum of literary honesty and rigor.”
1 “the same rigor that [Ramos] has in relation to others he also has in relation to himself, to the purity
o f his testimony, always wholly honest.”
5 ‘ “his bony skinniness.’”
* ‘ “fat is not a sign of good health.’”
' “in literature too fat is not a sign o f good health” (emphasis mine).
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215
corpus and his physical body. In effect, Cavalcanti affirms that Ramos “[t]em
uma simplicidade, uma disciplina, uma secura de fala que fazem o carater meio
exotico de sua fisionomia,”* which again suggests that an author’s literary
physiognomy, understood here as a set of special characteristics, is not that far apart
from a writer’s facial features.
This sort of undifferentiated physiognomy of the author, the person, and the
writings is not limited to Cavalcanti’s review, but has remained as a recurrent
element within the criticism of Ramos’s works.6 In an article published in 1955, for
instance, Virginius da Gama e Melo, states, in relation to Graciliano Ramos, the
person, that “[o] homem era, realmente, de vida seca” (234)/ and in a study on
metalanguage in Ramos’s writings, published in 1999, Marcelo Magalhaes Bulhoes
admits that the concept of metalanguage, usually associated with Brazilian
Modernism, does not quite match the image of Graciliano Ramos, an “imagem de
um sujeito duro, seco” (18)/ Althouth I have clearly limited myself to the usage of
the adjective “seco” [“dry”], it provides us with an insightful instance of this
undifferentiated physiognomy of Graciliano Ramos. Dating back to the first
appraisals of Ramos’s literary production, this adjective refers both to physical
appearance (both personal and environmental, if we bear in mind that Ramos comes
from the semiarid region of Brazil called the “sertao”) and to a literary style that
opposes the omateness that Joao Valerio, Paulo Honorio, and Luis da Silva
(protagonists in Caetes. Sao Bernardo, and Angustia. respectively) all criticize. As a
physiognomy that encompasses person and author, style and characters, Ramos’s
“possesses a simplicity, a discipline, a dryness in speech that compose the somewhat exotic
character of his physiognomy.”
! “[t]he man was indeed of a dry life.” It is not possible here to render into English the allusion that
“dry life” makes to Ramos’s last novel, titled Vidas Secas (1938), which literally means Dry Lives.
but was translated as Barren Lives.
T “image of a dry, hard man.”
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image has been constructed as an absolutely sincere one, and not only in the
sense of pure and unadulterated; neither feigned nor affected, but genuine; an image
that has no hypocrisy or pretense, but which is, instead, true. Etymologically,
“sincere” is usually taken to be derived from the compound “sem- + -cerus,”
meaning “of one growth,” like branches of a tree that stem from the same trunk.7 In
the case of Graciliano Ramos, this trunk is not devoid of a certain corporeity, which
the person lends to the author, and the environment, to the style. It is this type of
embodied sincerity that Ramos himself perceives in Jorge Amado, who was, together
with Ramos, Jose Lins do Rego, and Rachel de Queiroz, a member of a group of
regionalist writers.
In “O romance de Jorge Amado” [“The Novels of Jorge Amado”], an article
collected in Linhas tortas and dated February 17, 1935, Ramos begins by stating that
“[h]a uma literatura antipatica e insincera que so usa expressbes corretas, so se ocupa
de coisas agradaveis, nao se molha em dias de invemo e por isso ignora que ha
pessoas que nao podem comprar capas de borracha” (89).* Indeed, sincerity appears
to have been a term characterizing the new Brazilian novelistic production of the
1930s, as some of the articles in Boletim de Ariel suggest. In “A autonomia da
literatura nacional” [“The Autonomy of National Literature”], for instance, Alcides
Bezerra states that the “escritores patrios que querem ser sinceros em materia de
linguagem”* have been using the Brazilian dialect (142). Bezerra’s point of view is
akin to that of Gilberto Amado when the latter affirms that “[o] que combatiam os
novos — na literatura do Brasil — era so e so a insinceridade” (226),* but not without
* “[tjhere is an unpleasant and insincere literature that only uses correct expressions, that only focuses
on pleasant things, that does not get wet on winter days and therefore ignores that there are people
who cannot buy raincoats.”
f “Brazilian writers who wish to be sincere in terms of language”
1 “[w]hat the new writers attacked, in Brazilian literature, was insincerity through and through.”
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217
first pointing out that the two most valuable tools of this new generation of
writers were “o Brasil visto diretamente”* and “a gramatica brasileira, o vocabulario,
a sintaxe pegada em flagrante na realidade da expressao nacional” (225).^
Even though Ramos’s notion of sincerity is also based on a confrontation
with Brazil’s social and linguistic reality, which he calls “por os pontos nos n” (90),^
he ends his article on Jorge Amado’s novel by accentuating, in a different but not
unrelated manner, the author’s sincerity. For him, “[e]m Suor ha um personagem de
carne e osso muito mais importante que os outros; e Jorge Amado, que morou na
Ladeira do Pelourinho, 68 e la conheceu Maria Cabassu e todos aqueles seres
estragados que Ihe fomeceram material para um excelente romance” (93).§ To a
certain extent, Ramos’s assertion sounds like a late form of Naturalist fictional
aesthetics, in terms of Emile Zola’s postulate that a writer should be, above all, an
observer. In effect, Ramos remarks that “[o] autor [Jorge Amado] examinou de lapis
na mao a casa de comodos e muniu-se de anotanotes for his Germinal. Nonetheless, Ramos’s assertion also points to a different
conception of the writer, in that Amado is, in his eyes, the main character in the
novel, a persona made of flesh and blood, the same matter of which a face is made.
The core of the author’s sincerity thus lies in this corporeity which he borrows from
the real-life person and whereby his persona is constituted, and his imaginary
constructs, taken for honest representations of objective social reality. In this sense,
“Brazil as they saw it in person.”
1 “the Brazilian Portuguese, the vocabulary, the syntax as they were perceived in loco within the
reality o f our national expression.”
1 “to cross the t’s and dot die i ’s.”
5 “in Suor there is a flesh-and-blood character who is a lot more important than the others: Jorge
Amado, who lived at the Ladeira do Pelourinho, 68, where he met Maria Cabassu and all those rotten
beings that supplied him with material for an excellent novel.”
* * “[t]he author [Jorge Amado] examined, pen in hand, the rooming house and compiled his notes.”
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Amado’s persona is indeed, because of its very constitution, quite different from
the phantasmal characters Ramos criticizes.
But the sincerity of the author’s persona, in the sense of images that have one
and the same growth, has become more difficult to sustain after the discovery and
publication of several other writings by Ramos. After Ramos’s death, several of the
pseudonyms Ramos had used since he was a teenager were disclosed to the public.
In February of 1959, Moacir Medeiros de Sant’Ana discovered in old issues of the
Jornal de Alagoas an interview that Graciliano Ramos gave, at the age of 17, and in
which he reveals one of his pseudonyms, Feliciano de Olivenfa. With the
publication of Linhas tortas. in 1962, the articles he signed as R.O. and J. Calisto
come to light. In 1971, the Portuguese critic Fernando Cristovao publishes an
article, titled “Graciliano Ramos, poeta” [“Graciliano Ramos, the Poet”], in which he
analyzes some of the poems that, according to Ramos’s widow, Heloisa Ramos, the
writer published under the pseudonyms S. de Almeida Cunha and Soeiro Lobato.
Medeiros de Sant’Ana, in his Graciliano Ramos: Achegas bio-bibliograficas.
published in 1973, adds “Lambda” to the list of pseudonyms that Ramos used to
publish newspaper articles, and, when Ramos’s letters were first published, in 1980,
we discover that, probably in 1911, he was writing a work, together with Rodolfo
Mota Lima, under the pseudonym M. Soares (Cartas 17). Finally, Medeiros de
Sant’Ana, in A face oculta de Graciliano Ramos [Graciliano Ramos’s Hidden Face],
published in 1992, begins by recapitulating the pseudonyms that had been collected
so far, but his work soon turns out to be a profuse, scattered list of Ram os’s
pseudonyms, many of which, if put together, read like variations of a possible name.
Sant’Ana thus adds, to those already known, the pseudonyms Feliciano, Soares de
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Almeida Cunha, Manoel Maria Soeiro Lobato, J.C., Anastacio Anacleto, Lucio
Guedes, and G.R.
To a certain extent, one might say that these pseudonyms are Ramos’s
“hidden face,” but not exactly in the same sense that Medeiros de Sant’Ana uses it.
For what the critic actually calls Ramos’s “hidden face” is the writer’s discussion of
matters related to his self, such as his intellectual formation, about which he first
talked in 1910 in the aforementioned interview (Sant’Ana, A face oculta 13;
unnumbered). In this sense, Ramos’s “hidden face” would be “revealing” that
which, given his personality (or rather his persona), he would normally hide, as
Medeiros de Sant’Ana’s description of Ramos suggests: “Parcimonioso no falar,
principalmente a respeito de si mesmo, Graciliano Ramos, de temperamento
extremamente timido, nao costumava abrir-se, avesso que era a fazer confidencias”
(13; unnumbered).* Nonetheless, if the interview was signed G. Ramos de Oliveira
(a possible signature for Ramos’s given name, Graciliano Ramos de Oliveira, as it
appears in his marriage certificate, reproduced in Cartas [36]) and published in the
most important newspaper in Alagoas at the time, his writings signed under
pseudonyms and his personal correspondence point to other “hidden faces,” for they
remained unknown for a decade or so after the writer’s death.
Critical curiosity and personal acquaintance, however, have “revealed”
Ramos’s “hidden faces,” perhaps somewhat disfiguring what pseudonymity and
privacy should have guaranteed: the sincerity of the author’s face. In an interview
with Graciliano Ramos in 1948 (therefore after Ramos had already published most of
his works, including his first book dealing with his memoirs, Infancia). Homero
Senna asks the writer if he would like to reveal some of the pseudonyms he used, to
* “Parsimonious when speaking, especially when speaking about himself, Graciliano Ramos, with an
extremely shy temperament, did not use to open up due to his aversion to confiding in others.”
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220
which he replies: Voce e besta...” [“ - Are you nuts?”] (49). Nonetheless,
Critovao’s exact same request, but posed to Ramos’s widow Heloisa, had the
opposite effect, as we have seen. According to Cristovao, his justification was that
“seria vantajoso, para o conhecimento do seu estilo e personalidade, o levantar-se o
veu sobre essa actividade poetica, tanto mais que era notoria a sua modestia
desconfiada” (“Graciliano Ramos, poeta” 89).* Considering Heloisa Ramos’s assent
a “sensible” decision, Cristovao further states that “[a] importancia de Graciliano
Ramos, como escritor, ultrapassa os factos particulares e as dimensoes comuns da
modestia” (89-90).1 In a similar vein, Heloisa Ramos, who compiled the personal
correspondence published in Cartas, states that, given the initial attempts at
biographical sketches of Graciliano Ramos, one should now let the writer himself
“revelar suas relagoes com o quotidiano e as pessoas com as quais mais de perto
conviveu — e isto sem a fragmentagao de documentos e sem interpretagoes
passionais” (“Nota” 10).* On the contrary, researchers and biographers would have,
with the publication of Ramos’s letters, “uma fonte documental direta” (10).§
Although justifiable from the point of view of literary criticism, the
revelation of Ramos’s “hidden faces” might arguably run the risk of falling into what
Lucia Miguel Pereira calls, in relation to some of Katherine Mansfield’s
posthumously published stories, “[o] perigo dos fiindos de gaveta.”* * Alluding to
Paul Valery’s statement that only the light that a writer’s death projects upon his
* “in order to know his style and personality, it would be beneficial to raise the veil off his poetic
activity, mainly because o f his well-known wary modesty.”
1 “[t]he importance of Graciliano Ramos, as a writer, goes beyond particular facts and the common
dimensions o f modesty.”
: “reveal his relations with everyday life and with the people to whom he was close — and that without
either the fragmentation of documents or passionate interpretations .”
§ “a direct documentary source.”
* * “[t]he danger of the bottom of the drawers.”
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work “permite o julgamento em conjunto, — o unico mais ou menos justo”* and
that only the light of death “fixa as diretrizes, limita os contomos, poe os ultimos
arremates,”^ Pereira notes, however, that even death “ainda nos pode trazer surpresas
e destruir, ou pelo menos modificar as impressoes que ja tinhamos como defmitivas”
(85).1 Such an alteration of an author’s definite image is due precisely to the
publication (or republication) of what the author had not put before the public eye, as
Pereira suggests: “Das suas produces, ele [the writer] abandonara ao publico o que
lhe convinha, e o resto — os nati-mortos, os filhos espurios e enjeitados — ficara
esquecido, na desordem de um fundo de gaveta” (85).§
But the writer’s death may reverse all that, inasmuch as the deceased writer
partially loses the authorial control over his literary production, unless, of course, the
author leaves some indication to his heirs of how they should dispose of the
unpublished writings (in her note, Heloisa Ramos affirms, for example, that
Graciliano used to tell her that only after 20 years after his death should his
unpublished writings come to public [“Nota” 9]). Thus, according to Pereira,
A morte passa, um belo dia, e tudo muda. A familia atonita descobre que acaba
de perder um genio. E a papelada que d’antes talvez so representasse um
trambolho, adquire foros de reliquia. Tudo e revisto, admirado, catalogado. A
piedade — uma piedade levemente, muito levemente, misturada de ambifao —
resolve gratificar o mundo com as obras-primas escondidas. E os
desenterrados come?am o seu desfile, ostentando a luz crua, impiedosa, da
critica, as suas ffaquezas, os seus defeitos, e, quern sabe, as suas confissbes.
A obra postuma e quase sempre uma diminui?ao, e, nao raro, uma traicao.
(85)**
* “allows for a global appreciation — the only more or less just.”
r “fixes the directives, limits the contour, gives the final touch.”
: “can still surprise us and destroy or at least modify the impressions that we already had as the
definite ones.”
§ “Of all his literary works, [the writer] had left to his readers only those texts that behooved him, and
the rest — the still babies, the spurious and rejected children - had been forgotten in the clutter that lay
on the bottom o f a drawer.”
“One day death comes, and everything changes. The family, astonished, discovers that they have
just lost a genius. And the papers that used to merely take up space become relics. Everything is
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Although one does need to share with Pereira either her sarcastic view of the
deceased writer’s family’s disposal of his unpublished materials or her assertion that
posthumous works are always a diminution or a betrayal of the author’s published
writings, she does point to the fact that, contraiy to what she states, even after death
what appeared to be an author’s definite figure, as the critic proposes, may still be
altered.
In Pereira’s eyes, the unevenness of the pieces compiled in Mansfield’s
posthumous volume creates a sort of Dr. Jekill-and-Mr. Hyde image of the writer.
For, if some of the pieces may be included in what she calls Mansfield’s best phase,
in that they present “[a] mesma frescura de orvalho, a mesma transparencia, a mesma
limpidez,”* other short stories appear to be “absolutamente inesperados, absurdos,
deslocados” (85).^ To Pereira, the juxtaposition of such uneven pieces makes the
“least” Mansfieldian ones look like “[t]res manchas de cores violentas, berrantes,
sobre entre-tons esmaecidos,”* and the effect is “desagradabilissimo, e brutal. Como
se luzissem olhos alucinantes de desvairado numa face risonha, um pouco imprecisa,
muito Candida, de keepsake” (85).§ The critic summarizes such a disfiguration of an
author’s face in the sentence “Edgar Poe surgindo sob a mascara de Katherine
Mansfield” (85)** and cannot but inquire about its consequences.
She notes, on the one hand, that Mansfield’s sensibility “seria ate mesmo um
pouco piegas se nao soasse tao natural, tao clara, tao profundamente, tao
reappraised, admired, catalogued. Pity — a pity slightly, very slightly, mixed with ambition — decides
to present the world with the hidden masterpieces. And the unburied begin their parade, flaunting
before the critics’ merciless eyes their weaknesses, their defects, and, perhaps, their confessions.
The posthumous work is almost always a diminution and oftentimes a betrayal.”
’ “the same freshness o f the morning dew, the same transparency, the same clarity.”
! “absolutely unexpected, absurd, misplaced.”
! “(tjhrec stains o f bright, gaudy colors upon fading shades.”
§ “extremely unpleasant and brutal, as if the hallucinated eyes of a madman shone on a vague, candid,
smiling face, like a keepsake.”
* “Edgar Poe appearing under the mask o f Katherine Mansfield.”
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essencialmente pura”* and adds that her world “se nos afiguraria retocado,
artificial, se o tom de ingenua sinceridade nao fosse uma garantia de que ela o via
realmente assim, meigo e lindo” (85).f Nonetheless, Pereira must also admit, given
the publication of the writer’s posthumous works, that the three “least” Mansfieldian
(or perhaps even non-Mansfieldian) stories function as “tres janelas abrindo para
abismos insuspeitados”" and that, as a consequence, “[a] tentaqao e forte de descrer
da obra toda, de denunciar o embuste, de aprofundar os motivos do recalcamento.
Onde estara a verdade?” (85).§ Contrary to Pereira’s fear of losing touch with the
“truth” of the opera omnia, given the artificiality and insincerity of an author’s face,
a reading of Ramos’s “fundo de gaveta” may bring to light a less sincere author, a
figure in which phantasmal characters may have a less secure place.
5.2. Initial Investments: Graciliano Ramos and Romanticism
The very first pieces that Graciliano Ramos wrote and which critics have
been able to rediscover were two short prose pieces, titled “Pequeno pedinte” [“Little
Beggar”] and “Paisagem” [“Landscape”], both published in O diluculo (June 24 and
August 11, 1904, respectively). In the first issue of this journal, the editors explain
the rationale behind the choice for the journal title, which means “dawn.” Using the
daily progression of light as a metaphor for man’s biological development (from
birth to death), they state that “[o] titulo do jornal da a entender, apenas, que e ele
redigido pela infancia, - o diluculo” (qtd. in Ramos, Marili 10),** which does not
“would in fact be a little mushy if it did not sound so natural, so profoundly, so essentially pure.”
1 “would appear to us too polished and artificial if the tone of naive sincerity were not proof that she
actually saw it that way, beautiful and tender.”
1 “three windows opening up to unsuspected abysses.”
§ “[o]ne is strongly tempted to disbelieve her whole works, to denounce the fraud, to deepen the
reasons of the repression. Where does the truth lie?”
“[t]he title of the journal only suggests that the journal is composed by the childhood - the dawn.”
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224
mean to say, even if “dawn” might figuratively suggest so, that the “diluculo” is
the foreshadowing of future literary talents. For, just as the dawning of the day
leads into the radiance of midday sun, one might say, metaphorically, that “[tjambem
a inteligencia do homem, se, na infancia, se manifesta de um modo vago, indeciso,
mais tarde, em nleno zenite. podera ofuscar com o esplendor do talento” (10).
Nonetheless, the editors affirm that such a comparison is not theirs and that, in
choosing the title for their journal, they have not been led by the vanity of
establishing an absurd comparison (10).
To counterpose then the natural development of the diluculo. with its implicit
metaphor of a growing literary talent (and hence the possible suspicion of an
immodest foreshadowing of it), the editors attempt to focus the readers’ attention on
infancy itself. But, in so doing, they also inscribe the title of their journal in a
Romantic tradition. For the very analogy between daybreak and childhood
necessarily invokes, within the context of Brazilian literature, Romantic paradigms,
such as the poem “Meus oito anos” [“At the Age of Eight”] (1857), by Casimiro de
Abreu, which begins with the famous lines.
Oh! que saudades que tenho
Da aurora da minha vida,
Da minha infancia querida
Que os anos nao trazem mais! (33).1
In the poet’s longing for his past childhood, dawn functions as a sort of keynote that
announces and, in so doing, configures the picture of the poet’s infancy. To the soft
light that defines dawn, with which the poet associates his early years, personal
feelings, experiences, and the physical world are evoked, as if dawn metaphorically
“if man’s intelligence, in its childhood, manifests itself in a vague, undecided manner, it too may, in
its zenith, later obfuscate with the splendor of its talent.”
f “Oh! I cannot say how much I long / For the dawning of my life, / For the loved childhood / That the
years cannot bring me back!”
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encapsulated the poet’s whole experience of childhood. This coherent, sincere
picture of infancy is evinced in the correspondences that the poet constructs in the
second stanza:
Como sao belos os dias
Do despontar da existencia!
O mar e — um lago sereno,
O ceu -- um manto azulado,
O mundo ~ um sonho dourado,
A vida -- um hino d’amor! (34)
Such a pictorial sincerity is reinforced not only by the poet’s emphasis on his
childhood as a moment in time, detached from its consequent evolution into
adulthood and old age, but also by his subtle indications of the impossibility of
objectively arresting time in the same manner that his memory does. For what is
merely implicit in the first and last stanzas, namely, that the joys of his childhood
were succeeded by the sorrows of his adult life, appears in only one verse in the
fourth stanza. This solitary verse, which is textually placed more or less at the center
of the poem, only accentuates the sincerity of the picture the poet constructs of his
own childhood by establishing a clear-cut line between childhood and adulthood,
past and present.
For the Romantics, the only possibility of arresting that natural course that
takes one from childhood into adulthood (and consequently from innocence into
disillusionment) comes through an early death. In “No tumulo d’um menino” [“At a
Boy’s Grave”] (1858), Casimiro de Abreu compares the deceased child with an angel
who, still in the dawning of life, never stripped it of its veil of illusions:
Um anjo dorme aqui: na aurora apenas,
Disse adeus ao brilhar das agucenas
* “How beautiful are the days / O f the dawning o f our existence! I . . . I The sea is - a serene lake, /
The sky — a bluish mantle, / The world — a golden dream, / And life - a song of love!”
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Sem ter da vida alevantado o veu.
— Rosa tocada do cruel graniso —
Cedo finou-se e no infantil sorriso
Passou do ber?o p’ra brincar no ceu! (127)*
As Candido points out, “[s]er casimiriano e ser suave e elegiaco, dar impressao de
incomparavel sinceridade e, principalmente, nada supor no cora9ao humano alem de
meia duzia de sentimentos, comuns mas profimdamente vividos” fFormapao 2:173),+
which leads the poet to bracket both textually, as in the sentence “rosa tocada do
cruel graniso,” and intellectually what other Romantic poets would take as a starting
point. Gonsalves Dias, for example, begins his “Sobre o tumulo de um menino”
[“On a Boy’s Grave”] (1848) by evincing the contrast between a childhood that is, if
you will, suspended in itself and the hardships of life that the poet comes to know
later in his life. He says:
O involucro d’um anjo aqui descansa,
Alma do ceu nascida entre amargores,
Como flor entre espinhos; — tu, que passas,
Nao perguntes quern foi. - Nuvem risonha
Que um instante correu no mar da vida;
Romper da aurora que nao teve ocaso,
Realidade no ceu, na terra um sonho!
Fresca rosa nas ondas da existencia,
Levada a plaga etema do infinito,
Como o f renda de amor ao Deus que o rege;
Nao perguntes quern foi, nao chores: passa. (Poesias completas 113)*
* “An angel sleeps here: soon after dawn / He said his goodbye the shiny lily, / Without having o f life
the veil raised. / — A rose touched by the merciless hail — / He soon withered away, and in his childish
smile / He left his crib in order to play in heaven.”
f “to be Casimirianesque is to be mild and elegiac, to give the impression of an incomparable
sincerity, and, most important of all, to see in the human heart nothing but half a dozen of sentiments,
commonplace ones, but nonetheless deeply felt.”
1 “The involucrum of an angel here lies, / A Heaven’s Soul bom among hardships, / Like a flower
among thorns; - you who walk / Do not ask who he was. -- A smiling cloud / That crossed the sea of
life in an instant; / The break of day that did not reach dusk, / Reality in Heaven, on earth a dream! /
Fresh rose on the waves of existence, / Taken to the eternal clime o f infinity, / Like an offering of love
to the God that rules it; / Do not ask who he was; do not cry: walk past.”
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Unlike Casimiro de Abreu’s poem, Dias’s clearly emphasizes the impermanence
of things, which, if implicit in the movement from dawning to sunset and in the
instant that the boy’s short-lived life represents within what one takes to be the
natural course of the “sea of life,” as the poet puts it, is explicitly symbolized (but
also objectified) by the act that the poet urges the unknown interlocutor to perform:
pass by; do not stop. But the poet also pleads that the passerby neither ask who the
child was nor cry, as if, in so doing, he could retain, as in Abreu’s poetry, the
instantaneity that constitutes infancy. For those who know more than what the
emptiness of a name engraved on a tombstone suggests cannot do the same, as Dias’s
“Velhice e mocidade” [“Old Age and Youth”] indicates.
This poem begins with a father asking his daughter to walk faster, so that
they can enjoy the “saudavel frescor” [“healthy freshness”] of the break of day,
which contrasts with his old age:
O sol nascendo apenas, vem primeiro
Seus raios n’essa campa dardejar,
E a can?ada velhice e bem fagueiro
Esses restos da vida desfrutar. (Poesias completas 124)*
The father then tells his daughter of all the happiness he enjoyed in his youth only to
hear from her that she is about to die. Holding her in his hands, dead, the father
addresses God and laments that his sufferings, despite all odds, are not over yet.
Functioning as a contrast, the dawning light only accentuates the dramatic nature of
the scene:
E sobre a rosea face, ora amarela,
A aurora sempre bela radiava,
* “The sun, barely up, first comes / And his rays on this tombstone he throws / And to the weaiy old
age it is quite sweet / To enjoy this last breath o f life.”
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E o pai, anciao, que a dor rasgava,
Cingia ao corpo seu o corpo dela [the daughter’s], (128)
In effect, this scene is the culmination of the disparity between the old man’s misery
and the joys of his youth, which he summarizes in the verse “O mundo era entao luz
— hoje e so trevas!” (125).^
Similar to Abreu’s and Dias’s poems, the piece that Ramos published in the
first issue of O diluculo. titled “Pequeno pedinte” [“Little Beggar”], speaks of the
hardships in the life of an infant beggar and ends with the same disillusioned tone
characteristic of Romanticism: “Depois vem os dias, os meses, os anos, cresce e
passa a vida, enfim, sem tragar outro pao a nao ser o negro pao amassado com o fel
da caridade fingida” (qtd. in Ramos, Marili 11).* If one bears in mind the natural
course of events that is delineated in the editorial, with its Romantic undertones, one
might say that the little beggar, in Ramos’s piece, will never reach the splendor that
maturity should represent. In this sense, it constitutes as much a deviation from that
natural course as the death of a child, which Romantic poets mourn, or that of a
daughter, as in Dias’s poem. In effect, such a deviation not only disfigures the
progression from the dawning of one’s life to its twilight, but also the very definition
of each stage in that course. If the delicate light of daybreak should symbolize the
innocence of childhood, the little beggar is characterized by lack: he is an orphan
who has no home and must thus depend on charity. For the writer, who is also a
child, the perception of that disfiguration through a Romantic sensibility also
represents a deviation from the innocence that his own childhood should represent
for him.
“And upon the rosy, sometimes yellow, face, / The always beautiful dawning shone; / And the
father, whom pain had lacerated, / Embraced her [the daughter’s] body with his body.”
' “The world then was light — today it is only darkness!”
J “And then days, months, years go by; [die boy] grows up, and life ends without him having tasted
any bread besides the one kneaded with the bitterness of false charity .”
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One may say, of course, that the authorial voice is not actually Ramos’s,
since the writer himself states that very little was left of his own text, which was
refashioned by Mario Venancio, a post-office clerk who also taught geography at the
Instituto Alagoano. In Infancia. Ramos says: “O Pequeno Mendigo e varias artes
minhas langadas no Diluculo sairam com tantos arrebiques e interpolagoes que do
original pouco se salvou. Envergonhava-me lendo esses excessos do nosso
professor: toda a gente compreenderia o embuste” (253).* According to him, the
inhabitants of Vigosa perceived Venancio as the stereotypical man-of-letters. He
was a “sujeito profundo, colaborador de jornais, autor de livros,” ' who had
“maneiras esquivas e torcidas”1 that expressed “vida interior, desprezo ao senso
comum, inspiragao de poeta” (251).§ For “[e]m geral os poetas tinham aparencia
maluca e usavam cabelos assim compridos, escondendo as orelhas” (251).** In
Ramos’s account, the “unfortunate title” of the journal, Diluculo. had been chosen by
Venancio, who was “fecundo em palavras raras” (251)ft and had transformed the
post-office into a “asilo de doidos” [“lunatics asylum”] where the members of the
cultural associations of Vigosa, the Escola Dramatica Pedro Silva and the Instrutora
Vigocense, gathered, “emaranhados nos cipoais da concordancia e da metrica”
(252).^ In contact with this man-of-letters in a small town of the Northeast of
Brazil, Ramos was exposed to the most current movements in literature, which
contrasted greatly with the adventure novels he was used to reading:
* “Little Panhandler and several of my pieces published in O diluculo came out with so many
fripperies and interpolations that very little was left from the original. I was ashamed of our teacher’s
excesses: everyone would notice the fraud.”
f “profound man who wrote for newspapers and authored books.”
* “twisted and scornful manners.”
§ “inner life, disdain for the common sense, and poetic inspiration.”
* * “[i]n general poets had the looks o f a madman, with long hair hiding the ears.”
“ full o f odd words.”
! i “entangled in the jungle of agreement and metrics.”
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Perplexo, eu examinava as pessoas em redor, procurava distinguir nelas o
efeito da arenga dificil. Estariam compreendendo? As vezes me assustavam
discussoes embmlhadas: rapazes silenciosos animavam-se, discorriam com
exagero e odio, religiosamente. Isso me dava tontura e enjoo. Uma ideia clara
me surgia: os romances agradaveis eram bugigangas. Em troca, exibiam-me
insipidez e obscuridade. Ali e que estava a beleza, especialmente na prosa de
Coelho Neto. (252)*
Although Ramos states, as a memorialist, that he preferred the adventure novels as
opposed to the contemporary high literature, which he considered “chinfrim”
[“shabby”] (253) and a dreary “pesadume” [“burden”] (254) with more artifice than
substance, he never expressed his point of view: “Julguei-me insuficiente, calei-me,
engoli bocejos. Enquanto o dono da casa explanava a literatura encrencada, esforcei-
me por entende-la. Senti medo e preguifa. Nao me arriscaria a controversial
acovardava-me a presenfa de uma autoridade” (253).f Submitting to an authority
had, nonetheless, its compensations, for Venancio encouraged Ramos in his
investments in literary production:
Mario Venancio me pressagiava bom futuro, via em mim sinais de Coelho
Neto, de Aluisio Azevedo — e isto me ensoberbecia e alarmava. Acanhado, as
orelhas ardendo, repeli o vaticinio: os meus exercicios eram composiQoes tolas,
nao prestavam. Mas eu faria romances. Gastei meses para certificar-me de que
o palpite nao encerrava zombaria. Depois a vaidade esmoreceu, foi substituida
por uma vaga afliyao. Que teria o homem percebido nos meus escritos? . . .
Examinei-me por dentro e julguei-me vazio. Nao me achava capaz de conceber
um daqueles enredos ensangiientados, ferteis em nobres valorosos e donzelas
puras. . .. Nunca descreveria um candeeiro como o de metal amarelo que
iluminava, com azeite e dificeis pavios, duas paginas das Cenas da Vida
“Perplexed, I examined the people around me, attempting to discern on their faces the effects o f that
difficult talk. Did they understand it? Sometime confusing discussions would frighten me: silent
young men got excited, discoursed with exaggeration and hatred, religiously. All that made me feel
dizzy and nauseous. A clear idea dawned on me: entertaining novels were trinkets. In place of them,
they showed me insipidity and obscurity. That is where beauty was, especially in Coelho Neto’s
prose.”
' “I considered m yself insufficient; I silenced and hid my yawning. When the host explained the
complicated literature, I made an effort to understand. I was afraid and lazy. But I would not risk
getting into a controversy: the presence o f an authority made a coward of me.”
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231
Amazonica. . . . Mario Venancio continuava a animar-me, eu desviava
pretensoes arriscadas. (254-55)
Such a classic example of Ramos’s self-devaluation ends with his confession that,
after Venancio committed suicide, “[o] Diluculo tambem morreu logo” (255),^ and
he did not find any other equivalent reader: “Distanciei-me da critica. E nao me
entendi com o publico, muito incerto. No colegio, na Escola Pedro Silva, na
Instrutora Vigosence, toleravam-me. Em casa, sem exame, detestavam as minhas
novas ocupafoes” (25 5)}
Even though Ramos might have felt a certain ambiguity in relation to current
literary movements, and even if Venancio might have been, as Ramos states, greatly
responsible for the writing of the piece “O pequeno pedinte,” one should not simply
discard Ramos as an author who invested in a Romantic aesthetics, as some of his
poems attest. In dividing Ramos’s poems into three series, according to three
grammatical persons (first, second, and third person singular), Fernando Cristovao
points out that “[a] primeira serie e de estrutura predominantemente romantica, de
acentuado subjectivismo lirico, ao passo que na segunda domina a objectividade
pamasiana” (“Graciliano Ramos, poeta” 93).§ The earliest of Ramos’s poems to be
recovered so far, “Incompreensivel” [“Incomprehensible”] (published in O malho.
* “Mario Venancio foresaw a good future for me. He saw in me signs of Coelho Neto, o f Aluisio
Azevedo - and this made me proud and alarmed me. Bashful, my ears red, I repelled the prediction:
my literary exercises were silly compositions; they were valueless. But I would writer novels. I spent
months to verify that the suggestion did not represent a mockery. Later, my pride died off, and a
vague affliction substituted for it. What could he have seen in my writings? . . . 1 examined m yself
inside out, and I found m yself empty. I did not consider m yself capable o f conceiving one of those
bloody plots, full of valorous nobles and pure maids I would never describe an oil lamp like the
yellow, metallic one that lit, with oil and difficult wick, two pages in Scenes from Life in the Amazon.
. . . Mario Venancio still motivated me, but I deviated from risky pretensions.”
7 “[the] Diluculo soon died.”
! “I distanced m yself from the critics, but could not come to an agreement with the public either, for it
was too uncertain. At School, the Pedro Silva or the Vi?oscnce, 1 was tolerated. At home, without
any care, they hated my new occupations.”
' “the first series is characterized by a predominantly Romantic structure, with a marked lyric
subjectivism, whereas in the second one Parnassian objectivity prevails.”
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June 29, 1907), is in fact a decasyllabic sonnet based on two topoi of Romantic
poetry, which are related to that of disillusionment: unrequited love and the
impermanence of things. The poem begins with the lover stating that he does not
understand his beloved, who in the past happily disbelieved in love, whereas the
lover himself trod the path of love full of sadness. Presently, however, the beloved’s
face is sad and as pallid as wax, and she never replies to the lover’s inquiry into the
reason for that sadness, merely bowing her head (qtd. in Sant’Ana, Face oculta 47;
unnumbered).
In “Conftssao” [“Confession”], the second of Ramos’s poems to be published
in Q malho. the topos of unrequited love is taken to its paroxysm, in that the poet not
only uses a vocabulary expressing a Romantic absolute, such as the idea of a
“profiindo terror” [“profound terror”], but he also describes his emotional reactions
in an immoderate tone:
Lamentarei, sozinho, a forte dor tao funda
Que o peito me devora, esta dor lancinante,
Que mata, lentamente, e que e oriunda
Dos agrores do amor, e da sinistra sorte,
Que me persegue sempre .... (qtd. in Sant’Ana, Face oculta 49; unnumbered)
Following the Romantic aesthetics, the poet can only envisage death as a possible
remedy for his sufferings. In “Na penumbra” [“In the Penumbra”], however, to the
topoi of the impermanence of things and of the love lost the poet finds another
remedy, although an equally transient one: fantasy. Recollecting the tree-lined road
where he would walk with his beloved, the poet sees it now as a “floresta
emaranhada e treda” [“thick and treacherous forest”] where “so se ouvem as lugubres
* “I shall lament, alone, the deep, strong pain / That devours my heart; this lancinating pain / That
slowly kills and which originates / In the hardships of love, in the sinister fortune / That is always
pursuing me ....”
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perguntas, / Que triste, o vento, a solugar segreda / Nas ramagens das arvores
defuntas” (qtd. in Cristovao, “Graciliano Ramos, poeta” 94).* In this forest, which
the reader never knows if it is the result of time or of the poet’s subjectivity, the
lover distinguishes his beloved’s silhouette: “E eu habito este bosque, e, na
penumbra, / Muitas vezes, assim como um bom sonho / Meu vivo olhar teu vulto
alem vislumbra” (94).+ As Cristovao points out, in this poem Ramos depicts “um
amor obsessivo que acentua fortemente a prevalencia do eu sob as diversas facetas
do devaneio, desejo, despedida, recordagao e cansago, repetindo situagbes tipicas e
universais da lirica amorosa” (94).1
In effect, the ghostly figure, which the lover sees in his delusion and which,
in turn, converts him into another specter, is recurrent in Brazilian Romantic poetry.
In Fagundes Varela’s “Ilusao” [“Illusion”], for example, the lover is riding through
the woods — “A noite e fria e triste; solitario / Atravesso a cavalo a selva escura /
Entre sombras fatais” (45)§ — when he is dominated by his own thoughts:
A medida que avango, os pensamentos
Borbulham-me no cerebro, ferventes,
Como as ondas do mar;
E me arrastam consigo, alucinado,
A casa da formosa criatura
De meu doudo cismar. (45)
In his delusion, the lover hears the dogs barking; the servants open the doors; and he
goes up the stairs, finally seeing his beloved:
“we only hear the lugubrious questions / That the wind, in its sadness, murmurs, sobbing, / Among
the branches of lifeless trees.”
t “And I inhabit these woods, and, in the shadows, / My attentive regard often discerns your figure, /
As if I were in one of my good dreams.”
f “an obsessive love that strongly underscores the prevalence o f an I over the different facets of
daydreaming, desire, parting, remembering, and fatigue, repeating situations that are typical of
universal amorous lyric poetry.”
^ “The night is cold and sad; Lonely, / 1 ride across the dark forest / Among fatal shadows.”
“As I move forward, my thoughts / Bubble in my brain, boiling, / Like waves in the sea; / And they
drag me, hallucinated, / To the house of the charming creature / O f my maddening fancy.”
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No seu vasto salao iluminado,
Suavemente repousando o seio
Entre sedas e flores,
Toda de branco, engrinaldada a fronte,
Ela me espera, a linda soberana
De meus santos amores. (45)
As a sort of counterpoint to the lover’s delusion, the poem ends with a commentary
that makes it explicit to the reader that the lovers’ encounter was imaginary: “Os
pinheiros se inclinam, murmurando: / - Onde vai este pobre cavaleiro / Com seu
sonho insensato?.. ” (45).^
The insistence in Romantic poetry on the lover’s illusions and dreams
approximates the lover of the phantasms he sees, as in Gonsalves Dias’s “A visao”
[“The Vision”]. In the fourth part of this poem, a deceased man comes out of his
grave in order to mourn and call for his beloved, saying that, even after death, he still
suffers for her:
Onde estas, meu amor, meus encantos,
Por quern so me pesava morrer,
Doce encanto que a vida me prendes,
Que inda em morto me fazes softer? (Poesias 320)"
It is thus the permanence of that which should have been forgotten with death that
turns the deceased lover into a phantasm, as in Dias’s poem “Fantasmas” [“Ghosts”],
in which the specter, after leaving his grave, exclaims: ‘“Nao poder descansar!”’
[“‘Not to be able to rest!”’] (369). He then interpellates death and expresses his
disillusionment in discovering that death is not the final rest, the nothingness he
expected:
’ “In the spacious, well-lit room, / Softly resting her breasts / Among silks and flowers, / All in white,
garland on her front, / She awaits me, the beauteous sovereign / O f my sacred love.”
f “The pine trees bow, whispering low: / — Where is this poor gentleman going / With his foolish
dream?”
‘ “Where are you, my love, my graces, / For whom
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O morte enganadora, . . .
De que nos serve o teu poder, traidora?
Se a vida tiras, mais penosa a tomas;
Se tiras o softer, mais delicado,
Mais apurado, mais sutil, mais fimdo
Fazes, cruel, brotar do horror da campa. (369-70)
The lover’s impossible rest is thus the result of both the permanence of the
ineffaceable traces of memory and of the disillusionment he faces in confronting
either death or the phantasmatic nature of the beloved’s figure.
As Cristovao notes, the lover’s illusion, in Ramos’s “Na penumbra,” is
undone in the last stanza: “O poeta, so, na floresta sombria, ao evocar os passeios
com a amada, conclui que em vao se ilude com os sonhos ou a miragem, julgando
apercebe-la ao longe” (“Graciliano Ramos, poeta” 94)? In fact, the recognition that
the lover’s vision is imaginary is not only textually composed “pela enumeragao de
adjectivos que intensificam, ate a saturagao, o processo emotivo,”* as Cristovao
points out (94), but also through placing the adjective “sozinho” [“alone”] at the end
of the enumeration, in an attempt to close the poem with the statement that the lover
was, after all, alone. In adopting a Romantic aesthetics, the poet Ramos appears to
welcome ghosts, wishing that their momentary apparition would be more permanent.
If the progression of life is, for the Romantics, a movement towards disillusionment,
phantasms, like childhood, might represent an arrest in time.
“Oh deceitful Death, . . . I What good is your power, oh traitress? / If you take life away, more
painful it becomes; / If you take our suffering away, more delicate, / More refined, more subtle and
deeper / It flourishes, oh cruelest o f all, on the horrific tombstone.”
' “The poet, alone in the dark forest, concludes, in recalling the promenade with his beloved, that the
dreams or the mirage in which he sees her in the distance are nothing but vain illusion.”
1 “by means of the enumeration o f adjectives that intensify, to exhaustion, the affective process.”
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5.3. Pseudonyms, First Name, and a Mask for a Dead Face
The poems that Ramos published under pseudonyms and which critics have
been able to recover so far range from a period of nine years, between 1907 and
1915. When his first poem was published, Ramos was 14 years old, and, in 1915,
the year he would turn 23, he was already living in Rio de Janeiro (the nation’s
government and cultural capital at the time) and working for different newspapers.
In the letters that he wrote to his family, Ramos recounts the advancement he makes
in his job hunting, which was termed at the time “cavagao” (literally meaning
“digging”). A “cavagao” was, first and foremost, dependent upon one’s social
capital, and Ramos describes in his letters the different doors that opened to him due
to the acquaintances that he made working for the newspapers in Rio, one of the
main sources of employment, besides government positions, for those who aspired to
become writers.
In effect, Ramos’s ascension in journalism appears to have been rather fast
for someone who had just arrived in the nation’s capital from a small town in the
Northeast of Brazil. In a letter he wrote to his mother and sisters on October 20,
1914, Ramos describes his progress as a journalist in Rio de Janeiro: “1914 — 16 de
agosto — sai de Palmeira; 29 de agosto — cheguei ao Rio; 23 de setembro — entrei
para o Correio da Manha. na qualidade de foca; 11 de outubro — ganhei os primeiros
cinco mil-reis em novo emprego; 19 de outubro — mudei-me para a Rua do Passeio,
110 (Largo da Lapa)” (Cartas 39).* Whether or not Rodolfo Mota Lima, a childhood
friend who was already living in Rio at the time, or Ramos’s acquaintances in the
Jomal de Alagoas helped him in his “cavagoes,” it is clear from the letters he wrote
“1914 - August 16 - 1 left Palmeira; August 29 — I arrived in Rio; September 23 - 1 began working
at Correio da Manha as an apprentice; October 11 — I won the first five mil-reis in my new job;
October 19 — I moved to Rua do Passeio, 110 (Largo da Lapa).”
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during the period he first lived in Rio that, once he began working in the
newspapers, his new acquaintances helped him not only to get better or new
positions in the newspapers of Rio and environs, but also to get in contact with those
who were responsible for some of the contemporary literary journals, where he could
have some of his pieces published.
In a letter to Leonor dated December 8, 1914, Ramos says that he had to
write a sonnet for a friend who asked him for some piece to publish in his journal
(Cartas 42). On the fourteenth of the same month, he states in another letter to his
sister Leonor, with whom he confided about his literary production, that he was
“condenado a entregar, dentro de quarto dias, um soneto e um artigo para dois
jornalecos de dois rapazes que trabalham na revisao do Correio” (43).* In a letter of
July 10, 1915, in which he responds to his sister’s request that he write her about his
“produ95es” [“productions”], Ramos relates that his literary production had afforded
him a few friendships that might turn out useful to him, which reminds him of
Balzac’s statement on friendship: “Ja o velho Balzac dizia que as amizades mais
fortes eram as que tinham base no interesse. Nao sei se o digno fiances teria razao.
Creio mesmo que houve naquilo uma pontinha de malicia. Mas nao deixa de conter
alguma verdade” (60).^
According to Ramos, his friend Falcao, who worked as “redator” in O seculo.
asked him his opinion on poetry and spent an afternoon with him, showing the
originals of a forthcoming book. Ramos, in turn, let him see the manuscripts of two
of his novellas (60-61). As a result of this literary friendship, Falcao asked him not
“doomed to hand in, within four days, a sonnet and an article to two small journals edited by two
guys who work as proofreaders at the Correio.”
1 “The old Balzac once said that the strongest friendships are the ones based on interest. I don’t know
if the noble Frenchman is right. Indeed I think that there was a speck of malice in his commentary.
But it is nonetheless true in some way or another.”
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only to write a few verses in a poetess’s album, but also to give him one of his
novellas to publish in the Revista Americana (61). One of the editors of this
magazine had asked Falcao for a literary piece, but, since he had none written, he
thought of Ramos. In actuality, Falcao met by chance the secretary of another
magazine, called Concordia, and he ended up giving Ramos’s novella to this man,
who praised his piece and lamented his anonymity: ‘“um rapaz de talento... e vive
obscuro... e nao consegue nada porque tern talento... aqui so vencem os
cabotinos... ’” (61).* Ramos considers the appraisal of his novella a “caterva de
patranhas” [“bunch of lies”], but is thankful to Falcao for his concern with the fact
that he did not pass Ramos’s novella onto the editor of Revista Americana, as he had
promised:
Esse amavel Mecenas, que tomou a dificil tarefa de fazer que eu aparecesse, nao
ficou muito contente por ter dado outro destino ao conto que ele destinava a
Revista Americana, uma publica9ao dirigida por sujeitos muito graudos. Mas
consolou-me - a Concordia nao e coisa acanalhada, e uma otima revista, muito
bem feita, no formato da Ilustrayao Francesa. impressa em papel couche.
Demais, ainda havia duas novelas que podiam ser publicadas na Re vista
Americana. ( 6 l/
At the end of his letter to Leonor, Ramos states, in referring to himself and his
literary production, that “um animal que, aos treze anos, publicava sonetos idiotas no
Correio de Maceio e no Malho (barbaridades, esta claro!) pode talvez, aos vinte e
tres anos quase, nao tendo perdido todo o seu tempo, fazer qualquer pagina passavel”
‘ “a man of talent... and you’re still unknown... you can’ t get anything because you’re talented...
here, the only ones who succeed are the show-offs...
f “This adorable Maecenas, who took upon him self the difficult task of making me known, was very
happy in having found a new future for the short story that was destined for the Revista Americana a
publication directed by big shots. He did console me, however: Concordia is not one o f those vulgar
journals that one sees everywhere; it’s excellent, very well put together, in the format of the
Illustration Francaise. and printed in couche paper. Besides, there were still two novellas that could
be published in the Revista Americana.”
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(62-63).* According to him, his wish to produce more valuable literary pieces
explains why he was going to publish some works about Palmeira dos Indios, the
only place he knew well, in “revistas serias, onde gente grande colabora” (63),^
alluding to periodicals such as the Revista Americana. But it also explains the
rationale, from an authorial point of view, for Ramos’s use of different pseudonyms
for the heterogeneous pieces he produced during the years he lived in the nation’s
capital.
Whether or not Ramos actually had any pieces published in either Concordia
or in Revista Americana (and under which name), the fact remains that, from
Cristovao’s research on Ramos’s poetry and from Ramos’s correspondence, Ramos
was writing and publishing poetry during the years of 1914 and 1915. His letters
also indicate that he was writing prose pieces, such as novellas and short stories.
Ramos does mention, in his aforesaid letter to Leonor, a novella that should be quite
successful in Palmeira dos Indios (59) and the pieces “Maldigao de Jeova”
[“Jehovah’s Malediction”], “A carta” [“The Letter”], “O discurso” [“The Speech”]
and “Um retardatario” [“A Late-Comer”], which he had all shown to Falcao (61).
During the same period, he was also writing articles for the newspapers Jomal de
Alagoas and Paraiba do Sul, which he signed R.O. These articles were, for the most
part, marked by an ironic or humoristic vein whose tone is quite different from the
one he used in his poems, but which was quite common in the contemporary press of
Rio de Janeiro.1 0
In the articles Ramos published as R.O., for example, he uses his ironic vein
to call into question the laws regulating the unspoken contract between readers and
* “an animal who, at the age of thirteen, published silly sonnets in Correio de Maceio and in Malho
(stupidities, o f course!) may still, at twenty-three and not having wasted all of his time, produce some
tolerable piece.”
u “serious journals, where great people publish.”
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240
columnist. In the fourth article collected in Linhas tortas (and perhaps the first
article Ramos published in the newspaper Paraiba do Sul), he addresses the question
of his relationship with his readers. Although Ramos states that he does not know
them, he categorizes his readers as “comerciante abastasdo, poeta maltrapilho ou
rapariga adoravelmente devota” (16)* and explains, in the article, that he cannot write
about something until he knows his readers well. Otherwise, he cannot please them:
“Eu e que tenho necessidade de estudando teus gostos e fazendo completa abstra^ao
de minha individualidade, oferecer-te qualquer droga que te nao repugne ao paladar”
(17).+ In so doing, the writer effaces any differences between himself and his
readers: “Prometo-te solenemente que depois [after knowing his readers] terei o
cuidado de lisonjear tuas paixoes, injuriar teus inimigos, queimar incenso a teus
amigos, pensar como tu, enfim... tanto quanto o jomal o permitir, esta claro” (18).*
In effect, in many of the articles published pseudonymously as R.O., Ramos’s irony
falls upon well-known figures or places of both the writer’s and the readers’
everyday life, such as prostitutes (20-22), the cinema (24-28), or newsboys (28-30).
They are, in this sense, chronicles in which the writer humorously presents to his
readers, in an exaggerated manner that is most evident in caricature, that which is
absolutely (but not entirely) familiar to them.
Although Ramos relates that, despite the difficulties, he seemed to be making
progress, a personal tragedy altered the social conditions for Ramos’s investments in
literary production. In late 1915, three of his siblings and one nephew died of
bubonic plague, and Ramos abandoned his literary and journalistic career in Rio de
* “well-to-do businessman, ragged poet, and deliciously devout maid.”
1 “I am the one who, in studying your tastes and in abstracting from my own individuality, needs to
offer you any rubbish that does not offend your palates.”
1 “I solemnly swear that later [after knowing his readers] I will be careful enough to praise your
passions, to slander your enemies, to bum incense for your friends, to ultimately think as you do...
only to the extent that this newspaper permits me, o f course.”
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241
Janeiro, moving back to Palmeira dos Indios, where, in 1917, Ramos’s father
withdrew from the firm he owned with his son, Ramos & Filho. Henceforth,
Graciliano Ramos was the sole responsible for the business and became, to a certain
extent, a man of commerce. In his letters to Pinto from 1921 to 1926, Ramos
complains about his situation in Palmeira dos Indios. He was, then, a widow with
four kids to raise (his first wife, Maria Augusta de Barros, had died giving birth to
their daughter, Maria), “afastado . . . das coisas da inteligencia” (73),* “um pobre-
diabo .... Doente, triste, so - um bicho” (74).^ According to Ramos, he had not
opened a single book for five years (74), perhaps because “[e] preciso ser coerente
com o meio em que se vive” (77).1 As a man of commerce in Palmeira dos Indios,
Ramos perceives his habit of reading as a vice and does not see “para que serve
meter para dentro coisas que de nada nos servem na vida pratica,”§ adding that he is
referring to himself, for Palmeira dos Indios is not Rio de Janeiro (75).
In fact, not only was Ramos distanced from the center of cultural production,
but the state of Brazilian literature would also be altered considerably with the
emergence of the Modernist movement in Brazil. In effect, during the 1920s the late
Romantic or Parnassian poetry that Ramos had produced would become
systematically devalued within the market of cultural goods, whereas Ramos, in turn,
would reject the literary value of what Modernist poets were producing. In a letter to
Pinto, dated August 18, 1926, Ramos comments on a Modernist poem he had read
and says:
“away .. . from things o f the intellect.”
f “a poor soul.... Sick, sad, lonely — an animal.”
' “it is necessary to be coherent with the milieu in which one lives.”
§ “what good is it to put into one’s head things that are useless to our practical lives.”
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242
Isto [the poem] e bom, com certeza, porque ha quern ache bom.
Naturalmente os meus netos ai descobrirao belezas que eu nao percebo.
Questao de habito. Se me nao engano, e opiniao de M. Bergeret. Acreditas que
no Brasil possa aparecer alguma coisa nova? Em vista da amostra, eu
dispensava o resto. Afinal, quando o sujeito nao tern inteligencia para
compreender essas inova?oes, o mais prudente sera, talvez, seguir o velho
preceito do alcorao de Lilliput: ‘Cada qual quebrara os seus ovos pela parte que
achar mais comoda.’ Como toda a gente ate hoje tern quebrado os ovos pelo
lado grosso, nao sei qual vantagem ha em experimentar quebra-los pelo lado
fino. (83)*
The poem in question is Mario de Andrade’s “Poema” [“Poem”], which was later
published in Cla do jabuti [The Tortoise’s Clan! (1927), and which Ramos partially
quotes in his letter. Mocking Andrade’s (but also, more generally, the Modernist
poets’) use of a more coloquial Brazilian Portuguese in poetry, Ramos further
remarks: “Outra coisa: ve se me arranja ai uma gramatica e um dicionario de lingua
paulista, que nao entendo, infelizmente. E manda-me dizer se e absolutamente
indispensavel escrever sem virgulas. Fago-te esta consulta porque em Palmeira,
compreendes, nao encontro quem me possa orientar” (84)^ Although Ramos calls it
“lingua paulista,” Andrade’s pursuit, not unlike other Modernist poets, was the
valorization, within literature, of what one might call a Brazilian language. In the
opening poem to Cla do Jabuti. “O poeta come amendoim” [“The Poet Eats
Peanuts”], for instance, one reads a lyric bricolage of Brazil, throughout its history,
ending in a patriotic love that does exclude a Brazilian language. The poet says:
Brasil...
Mastigado na gostosura quente de amendoim...
“That [the poem] is good, I am sure, for there are those who find it so. Naturally my grandchildren
will discover in it beauties that I cannot perceive. It’s a matter of custom. If I am not mistaken, that is
M. Bergeret’s opinion. Do you think that something new might still appear in Brazil? In view o f the
sample, I dispense with the rest. After all, when we have no intelligence to understand these
novelties, the most sensible is, perhaps, to follow the old precept from the Koran of Lilliput: ‘ Each
one w ill break the eggs from the side that he finds the most convenient. Since everybody has so far
broken the eggs from the thick side, I don’t see what is the advantage o f doing it from the thin one.”
f “Oh, another thing: see if you can find me a grammar and a dictionary o f the Paulista language,
which I cannot understand, unfortunately. I ask you that because here in Palmeira, you know, I
cannot find a soul who may guide me.”
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Falado numa lingua curumim
De palavras incertas num remeleixo melado melancolico... (Poesjas 162)
In fact, Andrade’s emphasis on a Brazilian literary language is already present in his
preface to his first Modernist book of poetry, Pauliceia desvairada (1922).
According to Andrade, he writes in Brazilian, and he uses a Portuguese orthography
because, not altering much the result in his poetry, it at least gives him an
orthography (Poesias 74)."
Although, with the emergence of both a Modernist aesthetics in poetry and
the group of Northeastern novelists to which Ramos would belong, one might say
that the period of production of a “sincere” body of works began, a diffuse lyric
Romanticism did not disappear altogether from Ramos’s writings. As Jose Paulo
Paes notes, in the letters that Ramos wrote in 1928 to his future wife, Heloisa, “[o]
derramamento sentimental delas obedece ao pe da letra os canones tradicionais da
epistolografia do amor-paixao, a qual costuma ser tanto mais hiperbolica nos seus
arroubos quanto casta nos seus propositos confessos” (11). ' In effect, Ramos’s
hyperbolic sentimental effusion is the result of his unrequited love, a common topos
in Romantic poetry. In the first letter in the series titled “Cartas de amor” [“Love
Letters”], consisting of his correspondence with his soon-to-be bride, Ramos
complains of the conciseness of Heloisa’s letter (only two lines and a half) and of
Heloisa’s coldness: she writes seriously, like a devout, old lady, in a language that he
sees only in official documents (Cartas 89). Two weeks later, he complains again
that “o que e insuportavel e ser atormentado com indiferenfa,”* for a week had gone
by, and he had not received any letters from Heloisa (99).
’ “Brazil... / Chewed in the hot joy of peanuts... I Spoken in a curumin language / Of uncertain words
in a sticky, melancholic swinging... ”
1 “the sentimental outpouring obeys, to the letter, the traditional canon o f the passionate love letters,
which is usually as much hyperbolic in their rapture as they are chaste in their unconfessed purposes.”
* “what is unbearable is to be tormented by indifference.”
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As Paes points out, Ramos describes his indifferent love object according
to the prototype of the belle dame sans merci (15), which leads him to adopt a
masochistic position in his phantasmatic love (and epistolar) relationship. Against
the beloved indifference, Ramos states that he preferred, from her, a sadistic (and
hence eroticized) form of violence: “Penso que me seria talvez possivel experimentar
algum prazer se me atormentasses com alegria e ferocidade . . ” (99).* Similarly, in
his second letter, he asks his beloved to kill him: “Se nao te agradam sentimentos tao
excessivos, mata-me. Mas nao me mates logo: mata-me devagar, deitando veneno
no que me escreveres” (91).* In a contradictory move, the lover, facing his beloved’s
distaste for his sentimental excesses, takes precisely his own excess to its limits,
where the only possibility of pleasure is the suffering to which his beloved can
subject him. As Paes notes, “[a] desproporgao de intensidade entre os sentimentos
do missivista e os da sua correspondente e que induz aquele a exacerba-los ainda
mais” (14).* On a linguistic level, the critic adds, this exacerbation takes the shape
of a “especie de preito aos poderes persuasivos da hiperbole, com o seu mecanismo
de intimidagao e engolfamento” (14).§ The lover’s linguistic abysses — to which the
loved object can only correspond if, in sadistically killing him, she performed an
equally excessive act — indicate another level of pleasure that pervades the lover’s
letters.
“I gather I might experience some pleasure if you tormented me happily and ferociously.”
t “If such excessive feelings do not please you, kill me. But don’t kill me fast: kill me slowly, putting
a little bit of poison in what you write.”
1 “it is the disproportion between the intensity o f his feelings and those o f his correspondent that
induces him to exacerbate them even more.”
§ “type o f reverence to the persuasive powers of hyperbole, with its mechanism o f intimidation and
engulfing.”
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Since “tudo quanto a paixao nao possa medir pela sua escala de
desmesuras, ela o tem como a nega?ao de si propria” (Paes 14-15),* the lover
erotically invests in a “desmesura” [“excess”] that cannot, by definition, be measured
up. As Paes notices, “[n]ao deixa tampouco de situar-se no campo do hiperbolico
outro lugar-comum da passionalidade — a afetaqao de loucura” (15).^ If, as Ramos
states in his second letter, he went mad after he saw Heloisa’s eyes for the first time
(91), repeating a Romantic commonplace, such madness, allied with the beloved’s
indifference, leads the writer to another Romantic topos: “Andei criando fantasmas.
Vi dentro de mim outra muito diferente da que encontrei naquele dia” (90).*
Creating phantasms that, in the lover’s madness, replaces the indifferent love object,
Ramos idealizes and dematerializes his beloved: “. . . sei perfeitamente que tudo isto
e um sonho, que vou acordar,. . ., que tu nao tens existencia real. Esta carta nunca
te chegara as maos, porque nao tens maos, es uma criatura imaginaria. A flor que me
deste e que agora vejo, murcha, e simplesmente um defeito dos meus nervos” (91).§
But if the ghostly beloved is a sign of the incommensurateness of the lover’s
madness, it also indicates that it can only be corresponded by another investment in
the phantasmatic nature of erotic attachments:
Perguntas-me que me fizeram teus olhos. Transtomaram-me, e claro. Mas a ti
fizeram coisa pior: enganaram-te. Nao te serviram para ver-me. Foi a tua
loucura que me viu, essa loucura que podera chamar-se imagina?ao, loucura que
“everything that passion cannot measure through its scale o f immoderation becomes a negation of
passion itself.”
“within the realm of the hyperbolic also lies another commonplace o f passion - the affectation of
madness.”
1 “I have been creating phantasms. I have seen inside m yself another woman, quite different from the
one I met the other day.”
§ “.. . I know very w ell that all this is nothing but a dream, that I shall soon wake up,..., that you
have not real existence. This letter w ill never reach your hands because you have no hands; you are
an imaginary creature. The flower that you gave and which I now see, wilted, is simply a defect of
my nerves.”
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povoa os ceus, embeleza a terra e, aplicada aos seres infinitamente
pequenos, faz que se modiflque e tome forma apreciavel um pobre-diabo como
eu. (97)*
Contrary to the sincere writer, who is always attempting to depreciate himself in
order to correct what he deems to be an immoderation, the lover does not mind being
turned into a phantasm himself, even if that means an over-valuation that does not
correspond to the “real” person.
In this double phantasmatic construction, in which both lovers are phantasms
to and for the other, one lover is so reflected in the other that the notion of sincerity
appears to be inappropriate. Noticing the discord between one of his letters and the
following, Ramos writes:
O desarranjo que aqui notas facilmente te mostrara a agitagao em que me
encontro. Tambem observaras uma desarmonia desconcertadora entre o que
escrevi ontem e o que escrevo hoje. Nem parecem coisas feitas pela mesma
pessoa, nao e verdade? Mas para que explicar-te que, nao havendo estabilidade
no meu espirito, sou obrigado a retirar dele retalhos desconexos? (99)+
Dispersed into different persons that he can only recompose in the form of
“disconnected patches,” the phantasmic lover that Graciliano Ramos constructs in his
letters contradicts thus the authoritative image of the sincere author, Graciliano
Ramos. Both Paes and Cristovao point out such a contradiction. For the former,
Ramos’s love letters are “desconcertante” [“disconcerting”] if compared to what he
calls the myth Graciliano Ramos, which is based upon an identification between the
writer and his works (11); for the latter, “a imagem mais em voga do estilista de
* “You ask me what your eyes have done to me. They have turned me upside down, o f course. But,
to you, they did something worse: they fooled you. They did not help you to see me. It was your
madness that saw me, this madness that one may call imagination, a madness that peoples the sky,
embellishes the earth, and, when applied to those infinitely small beings, it makes that a poor soul like
m yself be changed and take an agreeable form.”
1 “The disarray that you may easily notice here w ill show you the agitation in which I find myself.
You w ill also note a disconcerting disharmony between what I wrote yesterday and what I write
today. They don’t even seem to be things written by the same person, do they? But why should I
explain to you that, since there is no stability in my spirit, I am obliged to extract from it disconnected
patches?”
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Vidas secas nao corresponde exactamente a do homem que ele foi” (“Estilo”
115).* Nonetheless, both critics end up attempting to lessen the complexity that
Ramos’s love letters institute in his writings.
According to Cristovao, the contrasting images of the writer and the real-life
man can only superpose and complete each other coherently in an in-depth analysis,
given that “a capacidade de assumir uma determinada personalidade literaria nao
deixa de mergulhar raizes no verdadeiro psiquismo, ainda que nao inteiramente
exteriorizado” (“Estilo” 115)/ On this level, adds Cristovao, one might say that
there is an identity between the stylist and the man. As for Paes, he points out that
there is an element in Ramos’s love letters which one might call “mais gracilianesco
do que os outros” (17),* namely, their ironic or humorous vein. In his eyes, Ramos’s
“lances de humor ironico e autocritico . . . servem para conter, a guisa de corretivo,
as demasias da passionalidade” (17).§ In this sense, not only does humor and irony
correct the excesses of Ramos’s Romantic sensibility in his love letters, but they also
approximate them to his other writings, both his newspaper articles and his
authoritative works, especially Caetes.
If the first are, as we have noted, characterized by irony, Caetes presents, as
Paes observes, the same mixture of passion and self-irony. Indeed, Ramos’s
amorous correspondence with Heloisa often “tra[z] a memoria o tom, entre cagoista e
sentimental, com que Joao Valerio nos confidencia a historia de sua paixao por
* “the most common image of the highly stylized writer of Vidas secas [Barren Lives! does not
correspond exactly to that of the man that he was.”
f “contrary to what one may expect, the capacity to assume a certain literary personality also finds its
roots in the true psyche, even if it is not completely made exterior.”
1 “more Gracilianesque than the others.”
5 “instances of ironic and self-critical humor... serve to contain, in the form o f a corrective, the
excesses o f passion.”
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Luisa” (19).* Although the correlations between the narrative of Valerio’s love
for Luisa and the text of Ramos’s amorous correspondence with Heloisa might
underscore the myth “Graciliano Ramos” that Paes initially rejects, the ironies he
points out appear to once more upset this myth, precisely because they are not
always such clear instances of irony as the critic proposes. Paes’s first example of
irony is taken from letter 36 (not letter 35, as he states), in which Ramos confesses to
Heloisa: “Muitas coisas para dizer-te, mas coisas que so se dizem em silencio e que
talvez compreendas, se houver afinidade entre nos. Santo Deus! Como isto e
pedantesco!” (Ramos, Cartas 91).1 - According to him, the two final exclamations
function as a mea culpa. But could we not read them also as an indication of a
certain despair on the part of the speaker, who might be facing a situation that
escapes his control? If the signification of these exclamations in relation to Ramos’s
writings is at least unstable because one can only decide on a tone (ironic or
desperate) through an act of interpretation, reducing it to irony may turn out to be an
effective strategy, regarding Ramos’s sincere authorial image. Whereas critics may
recur to the more “Gracilianesque” elements, such as irony, or to the notion of
infantile or juvenile production in order to downplay the complexity that Ramos’s
poetry and correspondence bring to his writings, the writer himself may put into play
different strategies: pseudonymity and privacy.
In Authorship As Alchemy. David Glenn Kropf points out, based on
Foucault’s notion of author-function, how the institution of authorship serves to
stabilize an authorial identity while it guarantees, at the same time, the margins of
profitability in producing a literary work. With the growth of the printing industry
’ “bring to memory the tone, in between mocking and sentimental, with which Valerio confide in us
the story o f his passion for Luisa.”
1 “So many things to tell you, but things that one cannot only tell by silencing, things that you can
perhaps understand if there is any affinity between the two o f us. Oh God! How priggish this is!”
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and the reading public, Kropf notes, “copyright laws began to be drafted in order
to protect the writer’s work -- and also the profits a publisher could derive from
being a work’s sole distributor” (63). Economy, however, is not the sole realm in
which profits can be made, and one might say that, politically and legally, authorship
allows for social accountability. For it not only constructs a “singular entity” from
the sum “texts + writer,” but it also “holds the subject that results [from this sum]
accountable — legally and/or ethically — for all utterances made” (Kropf 65). For the
writer, the accountability of authorship, which also functions within a literary realm,
may also entail the necessity of organizing (if not controlling) what should (or should
not) be inscribed in one’s authorial name.
As Kropf observes, the organization of an author’s complete works — the
opera omnia — is a case in question, for, “[a]s authorization took hold, writers
increasingly came to look back and collect their life and works, as if to ensure that
the author that a complete edition would constitute would be as ‘true’ as possible”
(71). As I have mentioned, Ramos used to tell his wife that only twenty years after
his death should his unpublished writings be disclosed to the public eye. By 1973,
twenty years after Ramos’s death, his authorial figure was pretty much stabilized,
and only after that did Heloisa Ramos, his widow, presented to his publishers his
personal correspondence. In the letter in which she introduces Ramos’s letters to
them, dated October 1980, she comments on the possible discrepancies between the
author of fictional works and the man writing personal letters. She says:
E natural que da ressonancia obtida ao longo do tempo pelos seus romances,
contos e volumes de memorias, de par com sua visao acerbamente critica da
realidade, tenha surgido uma imagem idilica do homem: a obra de ficgao por ele
criada criou, por sua vez, a figura ficticia de seu criador. Tambem para nao
interferir com este fenomeno, legitimo e por certo lisonjeiro, preferi manter
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ineditos os papeis reveladores de sua convivencia familiar e com amigos
intimos, que mostram sua verdadeira face. (9)
In the case of Graciliano Ramos, his “true” face might have been not only revealed
with the publication of his personal writings, as Heloisa Ramos suggests, but also
fixed with the molding of a death mask, made by the artist Honorio Pe9anha, as if to
indicate that, on Ramos’s final persona, one should see, sincerely, the traces of both
the man and the author.
For those who seek to avoid the fixity of an authorial identity, suggested in
Ramos’s death mask, pseudonymity may be a manner of subverting the process
through which an author is produced, inasmuch as, through the practice of
pseudonymity, an author exists alongside the writer, who may thus engage in
different types of writing (Kropf 74-75). Nonetheless, the very separation between
author(s) and writer may allow the latter to select which writings or works will
constitute one’s authorial figure. Similarly, through the separation between the
public and private realms, by means of which a writer is differentiated from the
“real-life” person, one may establish a distinction between works and other writings
that exist alongside this public figure of the author. Although such a separation may
be tempting to writers, so that they do not have to give everything to the authorial
names that accompany them, as Borges notes in “Borges y yo,” for contemporary
readers of Graciliano Ramos there is as yet another possibility, which is an insincere
image of the author. Within this image, the prose writer Graciliano Ramos is a
precursor of the poet Graciliano Ramos, but in the sense that Borges gives to
“precursors” in “Kafka y sus precursores” [“Kafka and His Precursors”] (1951). Not
“It is only natural that — lfom the resonance that his novels, short stories, and memoirs gained as
time went by, a resonance on a par with his extremely critical view o f reality — there should emerge
an idyllic image of the man: the fictional work that he created created, in turn, the fictitious figure of
their creator. In order to not interfere with this phenomenon, legitimate and certainly flattering, I
preferred to leave unpublished the writings that might reveal his family life and his relationship with
friends, which both show his true face.”
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only is Borges’s notion of “precursors” an anachronistic one, insofar as each
writer creates his or her precursors, but it also favors the gathering of a
heterogeneous body of texts. Within this heterogeneous, insincere Graciliano
Ramos, undesired phantasmal characters must co-exist with welcome ghosts.
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252
Notes
Although Ramos does not specify which authors he has in mind, one might
argue, given the propagandized split in the Brazilian literary field between realist
regionalist novelists and introspective psychological novelists (many of whom were
Catholics), that he refers to the latter. Specifically, Ramos might have in mind
authors such as Comelio Pena, in whose first novel, Fronteira rBorder Lines] (1935),
phantasmatic constructions supplant objective social relations. Mario de Andrade, in
analyzing Pena’s first two novels (Fronteira and Dois romances de Nico Horta [Two
Novels by Nico Horta], 1939), notices that in the first there is a “Viajante”
[“Traveler”] who “appears and disappears” and that, similarly, in the second one
there is a “Ela” [“She”] who also “appears and disappears,” without the reader being
able to “interpretar essas assombra9oes” [“interpret these apparitions”] (qtd. in Bosi,
Historia concisa 470). Taking a similar stand, Leonidas Camara, in “A tecnica
narrativa na ficqao de Graciliano Ramos” [“Narrative Technique in Gracilian
Ramos’s Fiction”] (1966), states, in relation to the Brazilian psychological novel,
that characters are constructed “quase exclusivamente, de pensamentos sensa?5es,
descarnados, espiritos apenas a dominar todo o campo do romance como se nao
possuissem uma vitalidade corporea uma anima9ao de gente de came e osso”
[“almost exclusively, of thoughts sensations, fleshless, merely spirits dominating the
whole field of the novel, as if they did not possess a corporeal vitality an animation
of flesh-and-blood people”] (281).
For Camara, Ramos’s narrative technique distances him from other novelists
who attempt to represent a subject’s phantasmatic constructions. “Um autor como
Otavio de Faria, como Comelio Pena,” he says, “levaram avante um outro tipo de
romance psicologico, de tecnica diversa, quando o elemento realista soffe uma
distorqao intencional para atender . . . a linha ideologica do autor e as suas
convic9oes esteticas” [“An author like Otavio de Faria, like Comelio Pena have
advanced another type of psychological novel, of different techniques, when the
realist element suffers an intentional distortion to accord with . . . the author’s
ideological and aesthetic convictions”] (283-84). Nonetheless, as Bosi points out in
commenting Andrade’s analysis, “se o romance de Comelio Pena desenrola-se no
ritmo do sonho, entao ha lugar para seres que nao tenham outra corporeidade alem da
propria e fugidia imagem” [“if Cornelio Pena’s novel unfolds according to a
dreamlike rhythm, there is, then, space for beings who have no other corporeity
besides their own fleeting image”] (Historia 471).
2
In Linhas tortas. no source is given to the articles compiled in the second
section, but the dates of publication are often indicated. For “O fator economico no
romance brasileiro,” that date is July 15, 1945, which becomes quite significant in
terms of Ramos’s biography if we bear in mind that he joined the Brazilian
Communist Party in August of the same year. However, in a letter dated March 31,
1937 and addressed to Heloisa, his wife, Ramos says that Olimpio Guilherme,
director of O observador economico e financeiro, asked Ramos for an article on the
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253
influence of economics on Brazilian novels (Cartas 194). Further research might
thus reveal that the date of publication that appears in Linhas tortas does not
correspond to the first publication of the article, which might antecede in a few years
Ramos’s membership to the Communist Party.
3
Josue de Castro (1908-1973) was a physican and nutricionist bom in Recife,
Pernambuco, in the Northeast region of Brazil, just like Graciliano Ramos, bom in
Quebrangulo, Alagoas. Flis most important work is Geografia da fome [Geography
of Hunger! (1946), later revised and republished as Geopolitica da fome [The
Geopolitics of Hunger! (1951). In the article from which Malard takes the epigraph
for her introduction, titled “O Nordeste e o romance brasileiro” [“The Northeast and
the Brazilian Novel”] and included in Documentario do Nordeste, Castro basically
refutes the critique that “certain critics” make to what they perceive to be
“intentional” or “sectarian” novels. For Castro, any work of art is necessarily
“tendenciosa” [“biased”], in that it represents a subject’s reactions to what he calls
“forfas circundantes” [“circumscribing forces”], reactions that entail a “diretriz”
[“directive”] (61). What matters for Castro is hence that the artist should maintain a
commitment to his sensorial impressions and experiences, without which there is no
unity between intellect and sensibility and, therefore, no “true art,” but merely the
artifice of pure intellectualism (60). Oddly enough, when Castro attempts to think
this distinction between the sincerity of “true art” and the artificiality of
intellectualism in terms of the history of Brazilian literature, such sincerity becomes
less subjective and related more to the objective material world. Such shift allows
him to perceive the Northeastern writers as sincerely revealing Brazil’s social reality
(against previous literary periods, such as Romanticism, Pamassianism, or
Symbolism), just as much as his Geografia da fome was taken as exposing the
question of hunger both in Brazil and worldwide, therefore reconfiguring the
question of sincerity by substituting verisimilitude to social reality for the subjective
commitment to a personal perception of the world.
4
In his review of Lucia Miguel Pereira’s novel Em surdina [On the Sly]
(1933), Jorge Amado includes himself in a group of “mo?os que tenta[m] algo de
melhor e mais honesto nas letras do Brasil” [“young men who try something better
and more honest in Brazilian literature”]. Although Amado does not indicate what
exactly constitutes the honesty of these young writers, one might assume, given the
context of the intellectual and literary debates of the 1930s, that he refers to both the
use of Brazilian Portuguese in the new novels (see, for example, his critique of a
Lusophone accent in Brazilian literature in “Escritores portugueses do Brasil”) and to
an attention to Brazil’s social reality. Both of these aspects would characterize the
novel of the 1930s of the Northeast of Brazil, with which group Ramos himself
was associated (another novelist in the group is precisely Jorge Amado).
5
Besides Valdemar Cavalcanti, whom Candido mentions in “No
aparecimento de Caetes.” other critics have also made reference to Ramos’s
“dryness” at the time of the appearance of Ramos’s first novel. Aurelio Buarque de
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254
Hollanda himself, the other critic Candido comments on, calls Ramos’s style in
Caetes “seco,” and Agripino Grieco, a famous critic in the 1930s and editor-in-chief
of Boletim de Ariel, characterizes Ramos as “homem sequissimo” [“extremely dry
man”] (148).
6
For a more detailed analysis of the criticism of Ramos’s works, see Eunaldo
Verdi’s Graciliano Ramos e a critica literaria [Graciliano Ramos and Literary
Criticisml (1989). In his study, Verdi points out that the critics’ concern with
Ramos’s life is almost as significant, in terms of the studies focusing either on his
works or on his biography, as that with his literary production (53; 57). In fact, the
impact of the image of Graciliano Ramos is more pervasive than what suggests
Verdi’s classification of the criticism on Ramos’s work as a whole. Verdi divides it
into biographical, psychological, and sociological approaches, but a reading of the
quotations inserted in his text demonstrates, mainly in the second approach, how the
psychological and the sociological criticism are often informed by this constructed
image of Graciliano Ramos, one of the main elements of which is Graciliano, the
person.
7
All definitions for “sincere” and its etymology are taken from the American
Heritage College Dictionary. As for the metaphor of the trunk whence all branches
stem, it is a pun on Graciliano Ramos’s last name, which means “branch” not only in
the sense that I allude to, but also in that of an area of skill or knowledge. Tristao de
Athayde uses that pun for the title of an article, “Os Ramos de Graciliano”
[“Ramos’s Branches”], in which he states that Ramos was able to conflate the
regional with the universal, the classicism of his style with the revolutionary aspect
of his message (195-96). In this regard, the sense of proliferation and diversion,
which the image of the branches of a tree might suggest, is undermined by the idea
that Ramos’s “branches” are “integrad[os] na sua singularidade inconfimdivel”
[“integrated in his unmistakable singularity”] (196). Thus, even though Athayde’s
title for his article might indicate an attempt to tackle with the diverse Gracilianos
that might perhaps co-exist under the authorial figure of Graciliano Ramos, one
might say that the key concept in his article is precisely the one that is not evident in
the title, that is, the “trunk” one might call “Graciliano Ramos,” and which Athayde
spells out at the end of his article when he states that Ramos was “[h]omem integro e
integral em sua vida domestica, social e intelectual. . . ” [“a righteous and integral
man in his domestic, social, and intellectual life . ..”] (201).
8 At the time of these publications, Ramos was only 11 years old. He and his
cousin, Cicero de Vasconcellos, were “redatores” [“editors”] of the semimonthly
journal, which was an organ of the Intemato Alagoano in Vi?osa, Alagoas, where
Ramos and Vaconcellos studied.
9
The first issue of O diluculo is reproduced in its entirety in Marili Ramos’s
Graciliano Ramos (10-13) and, only partially, in Medeiros de Sant’Ana’s A face
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255
oculta de Graciliano Ramos (67; 69), in which one can also find a reproduction
of “Paisagem” (71).
10
See, for example, Monica Pimenta Velloso’s Modemismo no Rio de
Janeiro, in which she analyzes how one specific group of intellectuals in the tum-of-
the-century Rio de Janeiro, namely, that of the caricaturists and humorists who
identified themselves with the figures of D. Quixote and the “malandro,” had a
tragicomic view of their social and intellectual role.
ii
References to sincerity also appear in Andrade’s Pauliceia desvairada. In
his dedication to his “mestre querido” [“dear master”] (himself), Andrade states.
“Nas muitas horas breves que me fizestes ganhar a vosso lado dizieis da vossa
confianga pela arte livre e sincera...” [“In much of the time that you made me gain at
Your side, You often spoke of your trust in free and sincere art...”] (Poesias 58); and
in the preface, as if resonating his remark in the dedication, he says that he sings in
his own manner and that, even if he cannot find many listeners, singing “faz renascer
na alma dum outro predisposto ou apenas sinceramente curioso e livre, o mesmo
estado lirico provocado em nos por alegrias, sofrimentos, ideais” [“makes re-emerge
in the soul of someone who is also predisposed or only sincerely curious and free,
the same lyric state produced in us by happiness, sufferings, ideas”] (Poesias 76). In
the cases of both Andrade and Ramos, sincere images are guaranteed by
exclusionary tactics: pseudonymity, biologically-based literary trajectories, and the
opera omnia. Andrade used all three of them: his pre-Modemist book of poems, Ha
uma gota de sangue em cada poema (1917), was published under the pseudonym
Mario Sobral and later, when Andrade was organizing his complete works, included
in the volume titled Obra imatura [Immature Work!
Within Spanish American literature, one might think of Jose Marti’s famous
Versos sencillos (1891), which begin with the famous verses “Yo soy un hombre
sincere” [“I am a sincere man”]. In his introduction to Versos sencillos. Marti asks
himself why publish “esta sencillez” [“this simplicity”] (113), and he responds,
porque amo la sencillez, y creo en la necesidad de poner el sentimiento en formas
lianas y sinceras” [“because I love simplicity, and I believe in the necessity to
translate our feelings into simple and sincere forms”] (114). Nonetheless, at the
beginning of the introduction, he states that his poems sprung out of his heart during
a winter when the peoples of Spanish America met in Washington “bajo el aguila
temible” [“under the eyes of the fearful eagle”] (113). Could it be then that Marti’s
sincerity is part of the effectivity of his concept of neocolonialism?
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256
6. Materializing Socio-Political Phantasms: Augusto RoaBastos in Exile
AUTORITE dans les discours & dans les ecrits. J’ entens par autorite dans le
discours, le droit qu’on a d’etre cru dans ce qu’on dit: ainsi plus on a de droit d’etre
era sur sa parole, plus on a d’autorite. Ce droit est fonde sur le degre de science &
de bonne foi, qu’on reconnoit dans la personne qui parle. La science empeche
qu’on ne se trompe soi-meme, & ecarte I’crreur qui pourroit naitre de l’ignorance.
La bonne foi empeche qu’on ne trompe les autres, & reprime le mensonge que la
malignite chercheroit a accrediter. C’est done les lumieres & la sincerite qui sont la
vraie mesure de 1’ autorite dans les discours.
“Autorite” in Encyclopedic, ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des
Arts et des Metiers, par une Societe des Gens des Lettres (1751-1772)*
In this last chapter, we shall take a different approach to the effectivity of
phantasms, reconstructing the symbolic struggle in which Roa Bastos engaged in
order to undo the socio-political phantasmalization to which he was subjected during
the time he had to live in exile. Since Roa Bastos’s phantasmal condition is the
result of exile, I begin by analyzing, in the first section, how he conceptualizes his
experience as an exiled Paraguayan writer, which takes us, to a certain extent, back
to the dichotomy between essence and presence, real and unreal. That is because, for
Roa Bastos, exile takes the form of both inner and outer exile, and this distinction
leads to other dichotomies: autonomy/heteronomy, which refers primarily to political
and economic relations, authenticity/inauthenticity, which concerns the cultural
sphere, and reality/unreality, which stems from the preceding two. Through this
series of dichotomies, which fosters what Roa Bastos calls a “derealization,”
phantasms begin to appear in his essays on exile. Not only are exiles socio-political
* “AUTHORITY in discourses and written pieces. What I understand by authority in discourses is the
right one has o f being believed in what one says. Thus, the more one has the right of being believed
in one’s statements, the more one has authority. This right is based upon the degree of knowledge and
good faith which we recognize in the person who speaks. Knowledge prevents that one deceive
oneself, and it dispels errors that ignorance might foster. Good faith prevents that one deceive others,
and it represses the lies that malignity would attempt to credit. It is thus enlightenment and sincerity
that are the true measure o f authority in discourses.”
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257
phantasms, but they also produce phantasms, including the phantasms of a lost
origin and a never changing home. Roa Bastos’s critique of the exiles’ search for a
lost origin should not, however, be understood as a dismissal of the concept of
origin, for he not only projects Paraguay’s origin into the future, but he also implies,
in his articles, that the construction of such originality must traverse exile, which is,
for him, a defining experience for Paraguayans.
Since, in the case of Roa Bastos, socio-political phantasmalization is derived
from exile, it is necessarily inscribed in a symbolic struggle over the legitimacy of
those who claim to be representatives of Paraguay’s nationhood and citizenship. I
thus examine, in the second section, the “stronista” discourse in terms of how
Stroessner defines the Paraguayan democracy and how he claims legitimacy for both
his definition and for himself, as a speaker. As we shall see, he bases his discourse
upon the general definition of democracy, attempting to demonstrate the relations
that bind him, as the highest political representative, to the people, the supposed
origin of his political power. Stroessner thus identifies himself with the people and
at the same time points out how Paraguayans support his government. Besides the
legitimacy that stems from the general concept of democracy, Stroessner uses other
strategies to claim legitimacy, such as international relations and historical
continuity. The latter, because of the ideology his party inherits from Paraguay’s
national founders, allows him to conceive the idea that Paraguayans must reject the
foreign in order to recuperate their origins. Within Stroessner’s discourse, to reject
one’s national origins implies the illegitimacy of one’s claim to be a citizen. On a
stylistic level, “stronista” authors make use of other strategies, such as poetic diction,
and, in view of the fact that they produce political texts, they emphasize the
referentiality of their texts, which cannot be dissociated neither from the author nor
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258
from his authority. Speakers run otherwise the risk of producing untruthful
discourses.
Having delineated this backdrop for Roa Bastos’s political essays, I analyze,
in the third section, Roa Bastos’s own discourse, beginning with his concept of
democracy, which, because it is also based upon the general notion of democracy,
does not differ much from that of Stroessner. In fact, what is at stake in Roa
Bastos’s debate with Stroessner is not actually the definition of democracy, but
rather the question of who can claim to be a legitimate representative of Paraguay’s
democracy. Therefore, I examine in detail how Roa Bastos calls into question
Stroessner’s legitimacy while at the same time claiming his own. My starting point
here is Roa Bastos’s use of a discrepancy between discourse and Paraguay’s social
reality, a discrepancy that he tries to “reveal” through the same logic of unmasking
that we have seen in chapter one. Since Roa Bastos’s essays constitute a reply to
political discourses, he must, in turn, prove the truthfulness of his own discourse. In
thus claiming his own legitimacy, Roa Bastos “calls things by their names,”
reversing the defining characteristics of “stronismo” into their opposite. Textually,
Roa Bastos devalues Stroessner and his discourse by means of different strategies,
such as an ironic or comic tone. But, again, one must go back to Roa Bastos’s
legitimacy as a speaker, which he claims by means of a unity between thinking and
action, an identity with the Paraguayan people, and rhetorical strategies, such as
using the formula “the true” and a dramatic or solemn tone. As we shall see at the
end of the chapter, Roa Bastos’s symbolic struggle with Stroessner’s political
discourse may have enabled him to maintain a certain social value, but it did not end
up in a disappearance of phantasms, but rather in the appearance of other, new
phantasms.
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6.1. The Drama of Exile: Phantasmatic Origins
As a result of an unsuccessful attempt to establish democratic institutions
through a coalition government, which was constituted in July 1946, a civil war
breaks out in Paraguay the following year. At the time, Roa Bastos was deputy
editor and, as he states, practically editor in chief of El pais, an independent
newspaper that opposed the government of Higinio Morinigo, then dictator of
Paraguay (Almada Roche 121). According to Roa Bastos, “[c]uando estalla la
revuelta, las bandas armadas que defendian al gobiemo .. . entraron al taller de
maquinas a empastelarlo. Nosotros, los de redaction, nos escapamos por los techos”
(qtd. in Almada Roche 121).* These armed forces searched his house that same
evening, and Roa Bastos only escaped because he hid in a water barrel. The
following day, he sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy, whence he escaped to
Argentina, where he lived until 1976 (Almada Roche 122). When the military took
over the Argentine government, Roa Bastos moved to France, where he was offered,
with Jean Andreu’s mediation, a position at the University of Toulouse le Mirail.
Roa Bastos’s long exile would only end after the deposition of Alfredo
Stroessner, under whose government Roa Bastos was forbidden to enter the country.
Nonetheless, taking advantage of a respite in the Stroessner government’s rigid and
long enduring politics regarding exiles, in 1982 Roa Bastos returned to Paraguay
with his wife Iris, who was then pregnant, and his son Francisco. Although they
were able to enter the country, their stay in Paraguay was curtailed by their sudden
expulsion from it. In Roa Bastos’s account,
“[w]hen the revolt broke out, the armed gangs defending the government. . . entered the printing
room to ravage it. All o f us from the editorial staff escaped through the roof.”
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El 30 de abril de 1982 un operativo militar, comandado por el propio jefe de
la section Polltica de investigaciones del Ministerio del Miedo, rodeo la
manzana del antiguo clan familiar donde estabamos alojados en casa de una de
mis hermanas. Entraron a punta de pistola derribando la puerta de entrada a
puntapies. Nos metieron en una furgoneta y nos arrojaron a la ffontera. Todo
sucedio en pocos minutos en el mismo lugar, en la misma casa de la que tuve
que huir la primera vez hacia 35 anos. (qtd. in Tovar 31)
This expulsion reenacted the severance between Roa Bastos, as a citizen, and his
country, and the fact that the Paraguayan government took Roa Bastos’s passport
away from him only reinforced that. For the writer thereby lost the right to claim
Paraguayan citizenship (Tovar 30).
Although Roa Bastos’s exile began, as we have noted, in 1947, it was not
until the late 1970s that he would produce a number of articles focusing specifically
on the question of exile.1 In these articles, Roa Bastos attempts to rethink the
concept of exile by grounding it on a dichotomy between “exilio interno y extemo”
2
[“inner and outer exile”]. According to Roa Bastos, the question of exile in
Paraguay encompasses different forms of exile. First, one should consider the forms
of exile to which the country itself was subjected, such as that of its native
inhabitants, which first occurred at the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, or
the country’s isolation after its independence, which the Triple Alliance War (1865-
1870) aggravated. For Roa Bastos, the isolation the country suffered after its
independence represented a loss of autonomy in face of foreign domination, a
domination that the British Empire accomplished in the nineteenth century with its
politics of economic liberalism and which multinational companies still fostered in
the twentieth century. Opposition to this state of domination, which the “native
’ “On April 30, 1982, a military operation, commanded by the chief of the department of political
investigations o f the Department of Fear, surrounded the block o f the old family clan, where we were
staying with one o f my sisters. They entered the house at gunpoint, kicking the front door down.
They put us in a van and cast us out at the border. All took lace in a few minutes at the same place,
the same house from where I had to flee for the first time, 35 years ago.”
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261
oligarchies” supported (Roa Bastos, “Exilios del escritor” 30), resulted in the
second form of exile, which comprised a separation of citizens from their native
country’s socio-political life. In terms of inner exile, this separation signified the
imprisonment of dissidents, whereas in outer exile it was constituted by exile stricto
sensu. It is the latter form that produces a split within the national community,
which becomes “una colectividad desgarrada en dos porciones: la que permanece
dentro y la que ha tenido que irse” (“Exilios del escritor” 30).*
The distinction between an inside and an outside, inherent to the notion of
exile, allows Roa Bastos to conceive the dislocation that takes place through exile in
terms of a non-coincidence between essence and presence, for exiles are never
present at the site that essentially defines them as citizens and social beings. As
Amy Kaminsky puts it, “[t]he exile, spatially, originates somewhere and is not
present there or is present somewhere from which s/he does not originate” (43). In
Roa Bastos’s essays, the non-coincidence between essence and presence represents a
disjunction between the apparent and the real, leading to a series of dichotomies that
reproduces the one exile engenders. Just as Rama’s fundamental dichotomy between
the real and the lettered city unfolds into a series of dichotomies that articulates a
discrepancy between the real and the illusory, Roa Bastos’s dichotomy between
inner and outer exile unfolds into a series of dichotomies that articulates, in a
reiterative fashion, the same discrepancy he draws from the spatial distinction
between inside and outside.
One thus finds in Roa Bastos’s essays three main reinforcing dichotomies:
those between autonomy and heteronomy, between authenticity and inauthenticity,
and between reality and unreality. The first one refers primarily to Paraguay’s
“a community tom into two portions: the one that has remained inside and the one that has had to
leave.”
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262
political and economic relations with highly capitalized nations. Within this
dichotomy, Roa Bastos opposes the country’s initial “autonomy,” “sovereignity”
(“Exilios del escritor” 29; “Exilio intemo” 15), and “self-determination” (“Escritura”
3) to foreign domination.3 Following a traditional historical viewpoint, Roa Bastos
states that the country achieved its autonomy after independence, during the
dictatorship of Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia (1814-1840). Under Francia’s
government, Paraguay became a “sistema autarquico y verdaderamente
independiente” (“Exilios del escritor” 29)* and “el primer experimento de autonomia
efectiva y de libre determination” (“Exilios del escritor” 29; “Exilio intemo” 15).^
Although the first dichotomy concerns, above all, Paraguay’s politics and
economy, it cannot be dissociated from the second dichotomy, between the authentic
and the inauthentic, a dichotomy that relates primarily to the cultural sphere. For, if
political and economic domination entails a lack of autonomy, its counterpart,
cultural domination, implies a loss of authenticity. In Roa Bastos’s eyes, members
of a dominated society are severed, through domination, from what is considered
authentically theirs, what essentially defines their identity. Needless to say, the
search for cultural authenticity may become problematic. As Schwarz points out, if
we begin by subtracting everything that appears to be inauthentic in a “dominated”
culture, the result might very well be a cultural void. In this sense, Roa Bastos’s idea
of cultural authenticity must juggle with both the miscigenated and the alienated
character of Latin American cultural identity.
He thus acknowledges that “inequalities,” “asynchronies,” and
“incommunicability” are “las caracteristicas de nuestro destino cultural”* which has
* “truly independent and autarchic system.”
f “the first experiment in actual autonomy and free determination.”
J “the characteristics of our cultural destiny.”
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263
been constructed upon “normas venidas de afuera” [“outside norms”] (“Identidad
cultural” 18). But, despite the inequalities he points out or despite the fact that Latin
American cultures are socially and historically characterized by a plurality of
cultures, Roa Bastos invests in the formation of a cultural unity and identity, which
he defines as a “unidad-en-continuidad” [“unity-in-continuity”] (“Identidad cultural”
18). For Roa Bastos, this cultural unity or identity can only be achieved if there is a
critical reaction on the part of local cultures, which might thereby convert the uses
and procedures of central cultures into “catalizadores de su propio espiritu y
caracter” (“Identidad cultural” 18).* However, this reaction must occur not only in
relation to foreign, dominant cultures, but also in relation to native ones. It requires,
in short, a dialectical resolution of the contradictions of the dominated cultures:
Las sintesis de estos desequilibrios se producen . . . a traves del proceso
dialectico entre cultura y sociedad, entre tradition y vanguardia, entre localismo
y universalidad. Pero para que tales sintesis sean verdaderamente fertiles ellas
no pueden menos que producirse sobre las lineas de fiierza de . . . nuestra unidad
e identidad, de nuestro caracter hispanoamericano. (“Identidad cultural” 18)1
Roa Bastos recognizes that such synthesis entails neither an absurd restoration of the
autochthonous cultures nor the blind and obstinate rejection of outside norms
(“Identidad cultural” 18). Nonetheless, in seeking it he claims that, in what concerns
international relations, “la enajenacion de sus fueros de soberania y autonomia, de
sus fuentes y fuerzas de production, el sometimiento de vastos sectores humanos, del
pais entero, a los intereses de la domination extranjera, convirtieron al Paraguay en
“catalysts of their own spirit and character.”
1 “The syntheses o f these imbalances are produced . . . by means o f a dialectic process between
culture and society, between tradition and vanguard, between localism and universality. However, in
order that those syntheses be truly fruitful, they cannot but be produced at the force lines o f . .. our
unity and identity, o f our Spanish American character.”
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264
una ‘isla rodeada detierra’ en el corazon del continente” (“Exilios del escritor”
29; “Exilio intemo” 15).* And, within the realm of cultural production, he portends
that
La fragmentation de la cultura paraguaya bajo el desequilibrio de las fuerzas
productivas . . . ha afectado en sus mismas fiientes sus potencias creativas; esas
fuentes que nutren las obras de los escritores, artistas e intelectuales y que
proyectan la imagen, la verdadera originalidad de un pueblo. Es obvio que ello
solo puede acontecer cuando tales obras se producen sobre el foco de la energia
social de la colectividad, con la esencia de su vida y de su realidad. (“Exilios
del escritor” 31; “Exilio intemo” 16/
In perceiving a dissociation between social agents and what Roa Bastos sees as the
truly original essence of a people, Roa Bastos comprehend Paraguay’s culture,
politics, and history in terms of a process of “de-realization.”4 “El hombre
paraguayo — y por ende su expresion cultural — ,” he asserts, “vive inmerso en esa
irrealidad o des-realizacion patologica en que se ha coagulado su historia” (“Exilios
del escritor” 31).* Similar to the parallelism between the dichotomies
autonomy/heteronomy and authenticity/inauthenticity, “de-realization” affects not
only the activities of Paraguayans as citizens, but also their cultural production.
Regarding the first instance, which consists basically of political exile, Roa
Bastos affirms that “los que son desterrados por estos delitos (militancia politica
subersiva . . .) no pueden volver. Y si vuelven, lo hacen como fantasmas, como seres
humanos fantasmalizados por la vejacion de sus derechos humanos y civiles ...”
’ “the estrangement of its Paraguay’s] rights of sovereignity and autonomy, o f its sources and forces
o f production, the subjugation of wide human sectors, of the whole country, to the interests o f foreign
domination, turned Paraguay into an ‘island sorrounded by land’ in the heart o f the continent.”
f “The fragmentation of Paraguayan culture, under the imbalance of the productive forces,. .. has
affected in its very sources its creative powers; those sources that nourish the works of writers, artists,
and intellectuals and that project the image, the true originality o f a people. Evidently, this can only
happen when these works are produced at the focus of the communily’s social energy, with the
essence o f its life and reality.”
* “Paraguayans — and hence their cultural expression — are immersed in this unreality or in this
pathological de-realization into which their histoiy has coagulated.”
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265
(“Exilios del escritor” 30).* As a result of exile, socio-political
“phantasmalization” deprives social agents of their capacity to interfere socially or
politically, and it clearly involves symbolic as well as physical violence, evident in
the manner in which Stroessner’s government expelled Roa Bastos and his family
from the country in 1982. In recounting that expulsion, Roa Bastos says: “Todo fue
demasiado desproporcionado e irreal. ^Que era un escritor para esos policias
dichosamente iletrados? Un fantasma. esa mujer gravida a punto de parir y ese
nino dormido entre los gorilas? Fantasmas” (“Nacimiento de un ciudadano” 11).*
What Roa Bastos’s description of their expulsion suggests is that socio-political
phantasmalization rests upon a disproportion between the armed force that the police
utilized in the operation and the threat that a writer, a pregnant woman about to
deliver, and a boy supposedly posed.5
As a consequence of this socio-political phantasmalization, exiled
Paraguayans tended to construct even more phantasms. For Roa Bastos,
El escritor que produce su obra en la expatriation . .. paga el precio del
desarraigo que para el paraguayo en particular -- un ser entranablemente ligado
a su medio — resulta traumatico. En tal situation, su trabajo creativo se ve
acosado por todos los fantasmas de la perdida y del duelo. Segregado de su
realidad, falto de la nutrition vital que ella suministra, el escritor en exilio se
desrealiza. Los efectos de una enfermiza nostalgia efectan [sic] su trabajo que
tiende entonces, inconscientemente, a la idealization, a la exasperation extrama
[sic], a una especie de morbida ansiedad de retomo al origen, que es, como se
sabe - cualesquiera sean sus formas — , un sentimiento patologico de regresion.
Tal el drama de los que escriben afuera sobre la ‘tierra perdida,’ la imagen
idealizada e ideologizada que asedia obsesivamente al escritor paraguayo en
exilio. (“Exilio intemo” 16-17)*
* "those who are banished for these reasons (subversive poltical m ilitance. . .) cannot return. But if
they do, they do so as phantasms, as human beings who have been phantasmalized by the deprivation
o f their civil and human rights . . . ”
+ “Everything was extremely out o f proportion and unreal. What was a writer for those, luckily
illiterate, policemen? A phantasm. And this pregnant woman about to deliver, and this boy, sleeping
among the gorillas? Phantasms.”
1 “The writer who produces his work during expatriation . . . pays the price for the uprootedness that,
for Paraguayans in particular — who are viscerally tied to their milieu results traumatic. In this
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Socio-political phantasmalization thus produces a phantasmatic relation to an
origin, a drama in which the search for one’s home and the fear of homelessness are
staged.6 In this sense, phantasms are quite an appropriate figure for the experience of
exile. For the phantasm is not only that which is no longer present — or, more
specifically, present only in its apparent disappearance — , but also that which refuses
to leave the place it once called its home, the site that is, by definition, most properly
one’s own. Thus, rather than a sign of a full derealization, phantasms constitute a
figure through which exiles might conceive the very possibility of regaining their
socio-political reality. One might thus read Roa Bastos’s essays not only as
investments in the residues of reality that constitute phantasms and their refusal to
completely disappear, but also as a critique of the attempts to recuperate what has
been lost in the form it was lost. In this sense, through his portrayal of the exile as a
phantasmatic being haunted by the phantasm of a return to an original home, Roa
Bastos criticizes the identity politics we may find in the concept of home. In fact, he
states that “[e]se contexto de la tierra natal va evolucionando, no en el mismo sentido
que evoluciona la realidad sino con un ritmo propio; por eso creo que si decidiera
volver al Paraguay seria el mas extranjero de todos. No me reconocerian como
compatriota aunque trataria de esforzarme a fin de no parecer presuntuoso. El exilio
crea un estado de ajenidad, de extraneza” (Almada Roche 200-201).*
case, his creative work is haunted by all the phantasms o f loss and mourning. Severed from his
reality; lacking the vital nourishment it provides, the writer in exile derealizes him/herself. The
effects o f a sickly nostalgia affects his or her work, which unconsciously tends to idealization, to
extreme exasperation, to a sort o f morbid anxiety over the return to the origin, which is, as we all
know — whatever form it takes — , a pathological feeling of regression. Such is the drama of those
who write, from the outside, about the ‘lost land,’ the idealized and ideologized image that
obsessively haunts exiled Paraguayan writers.”
* ‘ this context o f the homeland evolves, not in the same sense that reality evolves, but with a rhythm
o f its own; that’s why I believe that, if I decided to go back to Paraguay, I’d be the most foreign of all.
They wouldn’ t recognize me as a fellow countryman, even though I’ d try to not look presumptuous.
Exile creates a state of foreignness and strangeness.”
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One should note, however, that Roa Bastos’s critique of the phantasmatic
desire for a return to one’s origin and of an always recognizable, because never
changing, home contradicts his assertion, in both “Los exilios del escritor en el
Paraguay” and in “El exilio intemo y extemo del escritor en el Paraguay,” that a
people’s true originality springs from its creative sources (see also “Paraguay ante la
necesidad de su segunda independencia” [20-21]). For, although his claim for
originality ought to be understood in terms of an independence from passively
accepted foreign influences, one must also note that this autonomously achieved
originality necessarily becomes the origin of the cultural identity thereby forged. In
order for one to follow the resolution he proposes to this contradiction, one should
not understand Roa Bastos’s rejection of a possible return to a lost origin as a
rejection tout court of the possibility of establishing one’s origins or home. Rather,
one would have to read his statement as a rejection of a return to an origin which, if
such a return were possible, would have remained unchanged during the elapsed
period of time.
If we read his assertion as proposed, then an origin may still be established,
but never re-established, in the sense of a reproduction of the same sensation of
“being at home,” which exile interrupted.7 In his rejection of what he perceives as a
phantasmatic attachment to a lost origin, Roa Bastos acknowledges the processes
through which identities are constantly being altered, which justifies his concept of
“unity-in-continuity.” Thus, he notices, “el socorrido concepto de identidad deja de
ser una abstraction idealista e ideologizada para expresar correctamente no los
invariantes de una realidad inmovilizada y replegada sobre si misma, sino la
coherencia de este conjunto de relaciones en incesante transformation” (“Identidad
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268
cultural” 18).* Within this endless transformation lies the possibility of
establishing a future origin and, therefore, of undoing the derealization of
Paraguayan society. That includes the effects of such a process of derealization,
namely, “esta especie de pesimismo moral que se advierte en el hombre medio
paraguayo de hoy” (“Paraguay ante la necesidad” 21)/ which leads to a disbelief in
the possibility of transposing “esta anoranza en una perspectiva abierta hacia el
futuro” (“Paraguay ante la necesidad” 21)/ Without the latter, Roa Bastos adds, the
hope of Paraguayans would be “apenas una nostalgia del pasado y su presente un
callejon sin salida” (“Paraguay ante la necesidad” 21).§
But, even though that exit door of sorts might lead Paraguayans to a socio
political situation different from that of exile, the pathway must of necessity run
through the experience of exile. Since Roa Bastos reformulates the primarily
political definition of exile in order to signify the very essence of “Paraguayanness,”
what he ultimately proposes is an identification between Paraguayans and the
condition of exile itself. In his three essays, Roa Bastos identifies different forms of
exile in Paraguay, encompassing various aspects of Paraguayan society, from its
colonial past to the present: the exodus of the indigenous peoples, which began in
1767 with the expulsion of the Jesuits; the country’s isolation, which the Triple
Alliance War aggravated; the inner and outer exile of dissident Paraguayan citizens
under the many dictatorships that ruled the country throughout the twentieth century;
the alienation of Paraguayan intellectuals, severed from the reality of their country;
and, finally, the exile of the Paraguayan writer in relation to the country’s
“the overused concept o f identity ceases to be an idealist and ideological abstraction in order to
rightly express not the invariants of an immobilized reality that is bent on itself, but the coherence of
this set of endlessly changing relations.”
t “this type o f moral pessimism that we notice in the average Paraguayan."
: “this yearning for a perspective that is open to the future.”
§ “merely a nostalgia for the past, and their present, a dead-end street.”
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bilingualism. Exile therefore ceases to be the situation of a particular social
group in order to become a mode of being and acting that constitutes Paraguayan
society in its many different aspects and throughout its history. In this sense, Roa
Bastos himself, as a Spanish-speaking Paraguayan writer and intellectual who lived
in exile at the time, becomes not only an example of the various instances of exile
defined by him, but also the historical product of all preceding forms of exile.
Hence, not only does Roa Bastos redefine exile, but he also does it in such a manner
that his definition restores to him what he had lost with exile, the right to claim
Paraguayan citizenship, becoming thus the epitome of that from which he had been
banished: Paraguayan nationality.
Since the phantasmalization that Roa Bastos sees in Paraguay results from a
political practice, the process of turning phantasms into a new reality involves
symbolic struggles over the definition of nationhood and citizenship as well as the
legitimacy of those defining them. For what is actually at stake in the practice of
exile is not only the rights to cross (or not) national geographic borders, but also the
definition of a particular concept of citizenship, which, as Kaminsky reminds us, “is
the aspect of national identity that is most strongly legislated: it is official, subject to
law and in some cases to revocation” (27). With exile, political representatives
determine who has the right to claim legitimate membership to the space we call
“our nation.” As cultural producers, writers can only respond to socio-political
phantasmalization by means of symbolic struggles, precisely because they produce
from within a dominated field. In the next sections, I shall first reconstruct the
“stronista” definition of Paraguayan democracy and the legitimacy Stroessner claims
for such a definition and for himself as a political representative. Against this
discursive background, I shall examine in the third part of the chapter Roa Bastos’s
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essays in which he too proposes a definition for democracy and at the same time
attempts to undermine Stroessner’s legitimacy. At the core of this symbolic struggle
lies the question of how phantasmalized will socio-political dissidents become.
6 .2. Stroessner’s Vision of a Democratic Paraguay
After Roa Bastos was expelled from Paraguay in 1982, the Paraguayan
newspaper ABC Color contacted the Secretary of the Interior, Sabino Augusto
Montanaro, in order to verify the reasons for his expulsion. According to
Montanaro, Roa Bastos was cast out of the country “[p]or sus ideas bolcheviques,
ultramoscovitas, y por intentar adoctrinar a la juventud del pais con dichas
ideologias” (“Montanaro” 11).* The same explanation would be given to the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights after a petition was filed, in which it was
claimed that Roa Bastos had been deported to Argentina “without any judicial order
providing for it” (Organization of American States). According to the Commission,
the Paraguayan government replied to the request for information on the case as
follows:
Under the authority conferred to the Executive Branch by the National
Constitution (state of siege, Article 79), he [Roa Bastos] was detained on the
grounds of his proselytizing activity among youth and university groups and
intellectual groups (Marxist-Leninist proselytizing activity banned by law in
Paraguay; the Communist Party in Paraguay is proscribed by the National
Constitution which prohibits liberty from being used to suppress liberty).
Augusto Roa Bastos chose to go abroad. He is currently in Toulouse, France.
(Organization of American States)
In an interview granted to the UPI news agency and printed in the newspaper Hoy on
February 22, 1983, Montanaro reiterated the government’s position, stating that Roa
Bastos had “ties with Soviet and Cuban elements” and that “[h]is friends and his
* “|b]ecause o f his bolshevik, ultra-Muscovite ideas and because o f his attempts to indoctrinate our
country’s youth with such ideas.”
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allies were Communists of Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and
even Spain and France” (qtd. in Organization of American States). He also stated
that “Roa Bastos ‘came here [in Paraguay] and tried to give a lecture at a high school
and a university. So, before he could indoctrinate youth to organize guerrilla wars
and to rise up against the government, we expelled him from the country’” (qtd. in
Organization of American States). According to Roa Bastos, the reason alleged by
the Stroessner government for his expulsion was “dos supuestos viajes que [el]
habria hecho a Cuba en 1968,”* and which demonstrated, in the Secretary of the
Interior’s point of view, Roa Bastos’s Marxism and Communism (qtd. in Tovar 30).
Within the “stronista” political discourse, the ban on communist activities,
which might be interpreted as an infringement on the citizens’ freedom of political
affiliation, was one of the elements that constituted the government’s definition of
democracy. In the presidential address to the House of Representatives in 1965,
Stroessner maintains that, in Paraguay, “no solamente se habia superado el periodo
de reiteradas agresiones del castro-comunismo, sino que se habian creado las
condiciones que impiden el desarrollo de ideas extranas y promesas exoticas”
( Mensaje del Excelentisimo ix). ' This exoticism or foreignness of communist
philosophies and regimes in relation to the “stronista” definition of democracy and of
“Paraguayanness,” which are, in the long run, identified with each other, is based on
three principles. First, communist political systems are seen as “reglmenes
totalitarios de gobierno, que envuelven al individuo y lo someten a infames formas
de esclavitud” (Politica 159-60).* Second, communism, because it is seen as an
’ “two trips [he] had supposedly taken to Cuba in 1968.”
t “not only had they surpassed the period o f repeated assaults on the part of armed communism, but
they had also created the conditions that hamper the development o f foreign ideas and exotic
promises.”
1 “totalitarian regimes, which involve individuals and subject them to heinous forms o f slavery.”
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attempt to establish an autarchic system, “constituye . .. un valor disolvente y
anarquico para los pueblos que no saben de sus instituciones tradicionales” (Politica
160).* According to Stroessner, communism intends to rob Paraguayans of their
God, destroy their customs and falsify their homeland (Politica 159). Finally, the
dissolution of the principles of the Paraguayan democratic system is carried out by
means of violent acts, thereby disturbing the peaceful maintenance of the social
order.
That was, in fact, another of the cornerstones of the “stronista” definition of a
democratic system. In both presidential addresses to the House of Representatives
(of 1962 and of 1965) and in Politica v estrategia del desarrollo (1977), Stroessner
affirms that peace is the basis for the good functioning of the country as a whole:
labor, wealth, moral progress, justice, or human rights are all dependent on peace.
And, since peace is considered the basis upon which rests the nation’s structure in its
entirety, it is conceived as a “patrimonio nacional, que debe ser defendido como se
defiende la propia soberania nacional” (Mensaie presidencial 8).1 Consequently,
those who go against it are not only robbing the nation of one of its most
fundamental assets or legacies and therefore opposing those who guard it, but they
are also, in so doing, threatening the social order as a whole. According to
Stroessner,
[qjuienes atentan contra esta paz atentarian contra los fundamentos de la
Republica como forma de Gobierno y asestarian un golpe mortal contra los
nobles ideales americanistas que integran el concepto de respeto y decoro que
junto con los principios de lealtad al cristianismo y a las hermosas tradiciones de
la raza, otorgan dignidad a la persona humana para el cumplimiento de sus
“constitutes . . . a dissolving and anarchic value to the peoples that do not know o f their traditional
institutions.”
f “national legacy, which must be defended as one defends national sovereignty itself.”
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legitimos fines juridicos, sin los cuales la vida se precipita en los abismos de
la esclavitud degradante y oprobiosa. (Mensaie presidencial 5).
The maintenance of peace thus becomes, by means of an equation between peace and
“bien nacional” or “patrimonio nacional,” a matter of national defense, which is
carried out in accordance with the doctrine of national security.8
Such an equation, which constitutes the “stronista” definition of peace, also
defines in turn the role of the government vis a vis its opponents. If peace is a
national legacy and must be defended as such, the government becomes, by
definition, its highest guardian. As Stroessner puts it, “[su] Gobierno se halla
fielmente decidido a fulminar con toda la fuerza de [su] insobomable patriotismo a
quienes se levanten en armas contra las instituciones legalmente constituidas. Los
conspiradores de dentro y de fuera del pais y los traidores, los transfugas y los
pervertidos seran castigados por sus delitos como manda la Ley” (Politica 163).1 It
is because this defense is legally sanctioned that the government, in employing the
available apparatuses in order to preserve the social order, may claim it is performing
its assigned duties.
These attempts to establish the legality of the government’s actions (evinced
both in relation to Roa Bastos’s expulsion from Paraguay, based on his alleged
communism, and in relation to the defense of peace and social order) ultimately
require that the government establish the legitimacy of its claim that it constitutes a
democratic system. This legitimacy is based, above all, upon the general definition
* “[tjhose who jeopardize this peace jeopardize the foundations of the Republic as a form of
Government and strike a mortal blow to the noble americanist ideals, which involve the concept of
respect and propriety, which, together with the principles o f loyalty to Christianism and to the lovely
traditions of the race, bestow dignity on human beings, so that they may accomplish their legitimate
juridical objectives, without which life plunges into the abysses o f a degrading and ignominious
slavery.”
1 “[his] Government has decided to faithfully annihilate, with the strength of [its] incorruptible
patriotism, all those who rise up in arms against the legally constituted institutions. The conspirators,
within and outside the country, the traitors, the turncoats, and the perverts w ill be punished for their
offenses as provided by the Law.”
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of democracy as a type of government that is exercised by the people, but its
claimers may also recur to other strategies, as we shall see. In fact, in the three texts
that I analyze, Stroessner emphasizes that his is a government of the people, whose
will is voiced by its chosen representatives, which results in an identification
between the government (and hence Stroessner himself) and the people. As the
highest political representative, Stroessner recognizes that the people is, for him and
his party, “la causante mistica y real de la mision a cumplir como partido. El pueblo
es la fuente de donde recoge[n] el espiritu que hizo posible la trayectoria homerica
del Paraguay en el escenario de las Naciones de la tierra. El pueblo es la substancia
mater que nutre [sus] fuerzas . . .” (Politica 111-12).* By recognizing the people as
the origin of a democratic system, therefore transferring to the people the
intentionality and the authorship that might be ascribed to their acts and resolutions,
representatives may claim to be the interpreters of the people’s will.
And, the more faithful to its origins is the interpretation, the more the process
of identification between the people and its representatives is accomplished to its
fullest. From Stroessner’s point of view, “[njingun ciudadano debe ni puede aceptar
las responsabilidades supremas de la mas alta funcion conductora de los destinos de
la Republica, si no posee primero el claro pensamiento y el poder de espiritu
suficiente para sobreponerse a si mismo, y correspondiendo a la confianza de su
pueblo, erigirse en la propia voluntad de la Nation” (Politica 62; Mensaje
presidential 7).^ But, if this “indissoluble [union]” between the government and the
* “ the mystical and real cause o f the mission they have to accomplish as a party [the Colorado Party],
The people is the source from which they collect the spirit that enabled Paraguay’s homeric trajectory
on the stage that is all the world’s Nations. The people is the alma mater that nourishes [their]
strength ....”
t “[n]o citizen should or could accept the supreme responsibilities of the highest function o f conductor
o f the Republic’s destinies if he does not possess, first of all, the mind clear and the spirit strong
enough to surmount him self and to set him self up, in corresponding to the faith his people bestowed
on him, as the Nation’s w ill itself.”
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people (Politica 114) is, in fact, to constitute the nation, it must be carried out
throughout the country. Every citizen must identify himself with the government
(and hence see himself mirrored in the government), so that the country may become
a nation. A national totality is indeed objectified in Stroessner’s policies regarding
the construction of a national highway system that would geographically integrate
Paraguay. For Stroessner, “[l]as rutas son instrumentos indispensables al gobierno
para irradiar su voluntad constructiva a traves de todo el territorio de la Republica”
(Politica 78).* This “cinta de union de los caminos” [“network unifying the roads”]
(Mensaje presidencial 13), as he calls it, is responsible for the “encuentro
permanente que existe entre Gobierno y pueblo paraguayos” (Mensaje presidencial
12f and for the fact that “la familia paraguaya entera esta ligada de un confln a otro
confin de la Republica” (Mensaje presidencial 13).*
If, on the one hand, representativity is thus established by means of an
identification between the government and the people, thereby making up the nation,
it is, on the other hand, legitimized by means of manifestations of the people’s
support for its government, such as public demonstrations or the elections. The
advantage of the first is that they may be performed throughout a term of office,
thereby helping to confirm the government’s continued legitimacy. For, as
Stroessner’s political discourse evinces, the government’s legitimacy must be
ascertained throughout the term of office if government officials are to claim the
right to occupy their positions. In his presidential address of 1962, for example,
Stroessner states that his government has been “fiel y leal en todo instante” to the
* “[t]he roads are indispensable tools, so that the government may radiate its constructive will
throughout the Republic.”
f “permanent meeting that exists between the Paraguayan Government and people.”
: “the entire Paraguayan family is linked from one comer of the Republic to the other.”
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doctrine it initially postulated (Mensaje presidencial 9).* Elections are, however,
the political device that legally determines the people’s support for its
representatives. For Stroessner, the Government’s “origin” is in the people’s vote,
and it must, therefore, correspond to this vote in its “realizaciones de progreso”
[“works towards progress”] (11). He thus emphasizes not only that his government
is the expression of the majority’s will (Politica 111), but also that it recognizes the
people’s right to vote (Mensaje presidencial 11). His assertions, he says, may be
verified by the fact that his government is calling popular elections, that the country
has an Electoral Law “que permite la mas amplia y justiciera consagracion del voto
popular,”1 and that the government granted women the right to vote (Mensaje
presidencial 11-12).
Alongside this principal strategy for the establishment of legitimacy, based
on the general concept of democracy, Stroessner uses other related strategies, which
tend to underscore the initial one. First, Stroessner points out the international
relations that his government maintains in order to demonstrate to those who are
being represented that their government is internationally recognized and that,
therefore, their alleged democratic system (and the conditions for its existence) ought
to be taken as legitimately claimed. Second, Stroessner claims political legitimacy
by means of a historical continuity between his government and those who were,
according to the doctrine of the Colorado Party, the founding fathers of Paraguay:
Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, the perpetual dictator who ruled Paraguay from
1814 to 1840, Carlos Antonio Lopez, dictator from 1844 to 1862, Francisco Solano
Lopez, who ruled Paraguay during the Triple Alliance War and died in combat in
1870, and Bernardino Caballero, former president of Paraguay (1880-1886) and
“faithful and loyal at all moments.”
' “that allows for the broadest and fairest consecration of the popular vote.”
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277
founder of the Asociacion Nacional Republicana (Colorado Party), which is,
according to Stroessner, the “interprete genuino de los ideales historicos de la
Nation” (Mensaje presidencial 13).* His government has, as he puts it,
“reivindicado el espiritu de los fundadores, sostenedores y defensores de la
nacionalidad” (Mensaje presidencial 45).' They are “depositaries del legado de los
fundadores, sostenedores y defensores de la soberania nacional” (Politica 79; 88).*
This alleged continuity may, on the one hand, be objectified by works that,
having been envisioned by the founders, are realized during the Stroessner
government; they are, in Stroessner’s words, an homage to the memory of their
“mayores” [“leaders”], “laureles de la paz que deposita[n] ante el altar supremo, el
altar del patriotismo paraguayo” (Mensaje del Excelentisimo vi).§ Stroessner thus
cites, as examples of such a continuity, the measures taken towards the development
of the Chaco region (Mensaje presidencial 13-14), the acquisition of the Ferro Carril
Central Paraguayo, which is thereby “reintegrado al patrimonio nacional” (Mensaje
presidencial 18-19),** and the Flota Mercante del Estado (Mensaje presidencial 19-
20; Politica 78; Mensaje del Excelentisimo xxv).
On the other hand, historical continuity is based on the ideology that is
epitomized by the figures of Francia, the Lopezes, and Bernardino Caballero and is
encapsulated in the aphorisms by which these figures are identified: “no depender de
ningun poder extrano”,+ + “Independencia o Muerte,”^ and “Veneer o Morir”§ §
(Politica 89), which stand for Francia, Carlos Antonio Lopez, and Francisco Solano
* “genuine interpreter of the Nation’s historical ideals.”
f “vindicated the spirit of the founders, sustainers and defenders of nationalism.”
“heirs to the legacy left by the founders, sustainers and defenders of national sovereignty.”
^“laurels of peace [they] lay before the supreme altar, the altar of Paraguayan patriotism.”
* * “reintegrated to the national patrimony.”
! t “to be independent of any foreign power.”
“Independence or Death.”
” “to Win or to Die.”
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Lopez, respectively. Following the Colorado Party’s doctrine, the “stronista”
government claims for itself, as a legitimate heir, the founders’ ideology. In Politica
v estrategia del desarrollo, Stroessner insists exhaustively on what he at one point
calls Paraguay’s “propia vocation de independencia, de soberania y libertad” (55).*
That Stroessner characterizes Paraguay’s independence, sovereignty, and liberty as
the country’s vocation should not be overlooked. It is, indeed, fundamental for our
assessment of the “stronista” political discourse. For, in representing the possibility
of calling forth, from within oneself, that which is most properly one’s own self,
independence, sovereignty, and liberty not only compose the principles guiding a
specific political system, but they also constitute the very essence of
“Paraguayanness. ”
Such essence is so originally Paraguayan that, for Stroessner, it precedes
independence, as is evident in the insurgency of the Comuneros (1717-1747), which
postulated “la doctrina de que LA VOLUNTAD DEL PUEBLO ESTA POR
ENCIMA DE LA VOLUNTAD DEL SOBERANO” (Politica 73).r According to
Stroessner, the Paraguayan people, who, “siendo ya paraguayo por el nombre, por el
espiritu y por todas las virtudes inconfundibles que defmieron su personalidad,
mucho antes que la proclamation de su independencia, paso a constituirse desde el
14 de mayo de 1811 [Paraguay’s Independence Day] en el hacedor soberano de sus
destinos” (Politica 89).*
The definition of Paraguayan national identity as essentially independent,
sovereign, and free as well as its defense in the name of patriotism lead to two
* “own vocation of independence, sovereignity, and liberty.”
' “the doctrine that THE PEOPLE’S WILL IS ABOVE THE SOVEREIGN’S WILL.”
“already being Paraguayan because of its name, its spirit, and all the unmistakable virtues that
defined its personality long before the declaration of independence, became, ever since May 14, 1811
[Paraguay’s Independence Day], the sovereign creator of its own destiny.”
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279
complementary ideologemes: the rejection of the foreign and the recuperation of
one’s origins. In Politica v estrategia del desarrollo. Stroessner repeats exhaustively
that the Paraguayan democracy is, by definition, nationalist precisely because it is
neither subjected to “voluntades foraneas ni a preceptos colonialistas” (78).* Within
that context, the different political factions constituting the Paraguayan political field
should aim at becoming
creadores y custodios de sus propias doctrinas, sin acceder a inspiraciones
foraneas que lastiman y debilitan el sentimiento de libertad, independencia y
soberania del pueblo paraguayo y [a] orienta[r] a las juventudes de la Patria con
las propias lecciones de [su] historia, haciendo que la democracia sea una
expresion de [su] patriotismo y no una falsa democracia en que naufragan los
principios sostenedores de la nacionalidad .... (Politica 85f
One should not understand this weakening of the three principles of democracy,
however, as merely a result of a diffusion of foreign ideologies that oppose them,
although this is also the case. For one should bear in mind that “stronismo” sees
communism precisely as a political philosophy that was doubly alien to Paraguay,
insofar as it was neither originally conceived in Paraguay nor was it conducive to the
establishment of the three democratic principles defining the very essence of
“Paraguayanness.” For Stroessner, the “seculares convicciones de un pueblo que
siempre decidio por cuenta propia hacerse dueno absoluto de su destino”* are
threatened by “ideologias importadas . . . por el solo hecho de ser importadas”
(Politica 87).§ In this sense, Stroessner’s three democratic principles are defined
through a sort of mathematical equation in which the foreign is always subtracted
* “a foreign will nor to colonialist precepts.”
7 “creators and guardians of their own doctrines, without acceding to foreign inspirations that harm
and weaken the sense of liberty, independence and sovereignty of the Paraguayan people and [at]
orient[ing] the Nation’s youth with the lessons taken from [their] own history, thereby making
democracy an expression of [their] patriotism and not a false democracy in which the principles
sustaining [their] nationality are shattered. . . . ”
' “the age-old convictions of a people who always decided on its own to make itself solely responsible
for its destiny”.
§ “imported ideologies . . . for the very reason that they are imported.”
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from a specific concept of nationality in order to achieve its defining origin.9 In
the president’s view, “los pueblos superviven y se hacen actores decisivos de sus
destinos, a condition de no apartarse de sus origenes, y de no truncar con
renunciamientos inadmisibles la trayectoria de los proceres y de los heroes que
dieron perenidad y gloria a la Nacion” (Politica 59-60).*
In order that this approximation to one’s origins — what Stroessner calls
“reatar el hilo de la historia” (Mensaje presidencial 19; Politica 60, 75 ,16f —
constitute an identity between one’s origins and oneself, this continuity between the
two must function “sin solution de continuidad” [“without a break”] [Politica 60).1 0
This means, on the one hand, that “true” Paraguayans “no admiten desviaciones de
su conducta ante si mismos y ante los demas” (Politica 90);1 they seek, instead, “la
recta interpretation” [“the right interpretation”] of their defining principles, without
which “se tergiversa el autentico sentido de la democracia” (Politica 100).§ On the
other hand, if this identity between Paraguayans and their origin require, to be
established, a “right interpretation,” any dissenting point of view signifies a betrayal
of one’s origins and, consequently, of one’s nationality. According to Stroessner,
[q]uienes carecen de sentimiento nacional, y son insensibles por eso mismo ante
los valores de [su] historia, no podran ser nunca los forjadores del porvenir ni
los creadores de la grandeza de la Republica, porque como renunciantes a los
origenes de su propia personalidad, no pueden constituirse en las bases
espirituales en que se asienta el edificio de la Nacion, ni en los mastiles
sostenedores de la bandera de la Patria. (Politica 79, 88)**
* “all the peoples survive and become decisive actors in their own destinies as long as they do not
stray away from their origins, and they do not thwart, by means of unacceptable relinquishments, the
trajectory of the leaders and of the heroes who bestowed perpetuity and glory upon the Nation.”
1 “to retie the thread of history.”
* “do not admit deviations of their conduct before themselves and before others.”
5 “the authentic meaning of democracy is distorted.”
* * “[t]hose who lack the sense of nationality and are insensitive, for that very reason, to the values of
[their] history will never be the forgers of the future nor the creators of the greatness of the Republic
because, as relinquishers of the origins of their own personality, they can become neither the spiritual
bases upon which the edifice of the Nation rests nor the staff bearing the Nation’s flag.”
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To reject one’s original self implies thus the illegitimacy of one’s claim for the
right to govern the nation or simply to be a member of that nation. For Stroessner,
“[l]os delincuentes comunes, los promotores de revoluciones, los traficantes de la
dignidad nacional en tierras extranas no tienen el derecho de reclamar un sitio de
honor entre nosotros, porque ellos son los enemigos irreconciliables de este progreso
que, no pudiendo negar, tratan de callar en sus proclamas, en sus manifiestos y en
sus panfletos incendiarios” (Politica 57).* Because the rejection of one’s origins
points to the betrayal of the national identity itself, it ultimately justifies the exile
imposed on dissident citizens, while at the same time reinforcing the government’s
legitimacy. For Stroessner,
[n]o hay peor anatema que el de la traicion a la Patria. Quienes se hacen
posibles de incurrir en las penalidades que la Carta Magna reserva para los
enemigos de [sus] instituciones no podran jamas recibir el perdon de la
ciudadania, porque no existe tribunal mas sagrado que el del pueblo, potestad
politica mas inapelable que la que el pueblo otorga a sus gobemantes. En [su]
mandato popular se hace came el verbo de la Patria y se hace vibracion sonora
de [su] investidura de Presidente de la Republica, junto con [su] legitimidad y
[su] dignidad espiritual, cuyas virtudes emanan de fuentes categoricas e
imperativas. ('Politica 117)^
That Stroessner should use modifiers such as “sagrado” and expressions such as “se
hace came el verbo” or “se hace vibracion sonora” is no small matter, for it indicates
that in his political discourses rhetorical strategies also occur on a stylistic level.
’ “the ordinary delinquents, the promoters of revolutions, the traffickers of national dignity in foreign
lands have no right to claim for an honorable place among us because they are the irreconcilable
enemies of this progress that, in not being able to deny, they attempt to silence in their
announcements, their manifestoes, and their inflammatory pamphlets.”
t “ftjhere is no anathema worse than that of betrayal to the Nation. Those who may possibly incur in
the penalties the Magna Carta reserves for the enemies of [their] institutions will never be able to be
granted the citizenry’s pardon because there is no tribunal more sacred than the people, who constitute
a political authority more indisputable than the one the people bestow upon their leaders. In [their]
popular mandate the Nation’s Word becomes the vibration of the sound of [their] investiture in the
position of President of the Republic, together with [their] legitimacy and [their] spiritual dignity,
whose virtues emanate from categorical and imperative sources.”
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One notes, first, how Stroessner uses a solemn and sometimes an overtly
poetic tone, which displaces the subject matter from the context of ordinary life and
resituates it within that of the extraordinary. What a poetic style suggests, within
Stroessner’s political discourses, is that the extraordinariness of political life can
only be appropriately expressed through a poetic diction, not common speech. It
calls for a diction that, precisely because of its strangeness and distinction, more
easily represents the extraordinariness of political hierarchy. That is evident in
Stroessner’s idea of Paraguayan citizens “entonando el himno de la paz y el trabajo”
(Mensaje presidencial 43),* for a hymn is precisely the recognition of a hierarchy in
which the imperfection of the lauders is to be surpassed by means of an identification
with the perfection of the gods. In Stroessner’s texts, the concept of a social
hierarchy is underscored by the use of terms that belong to the semantic field of
elevation, such as “superiores” [“superior”], “supremos” [“supreme”], and “altos”
[“high”] (Mensaje del Excelentismo vi). It is, however, in the form of address
appropriate for a president, “excelentisimo,” that this hierarchy is most evident, since
it is the superlative form of the adjective “excellent,” which derives from the verb
“excel,” meaning “to show superiority” (“Excel”).
As Roa Bastos points out in Yo. el supremo, the danger of superiority or
supremacy is that they may constitute absolutist forms of power. Political
representatives, such as El Supremo or Stroessner, know that all too well. Thus, in
order that hierarchy be in fact the united body politics that citizens praise and
produce when singing hymns, the Head of the State (or his ideologues) must speak
with authority, otherwise he risks producing an empty discourse. In La epoca de
Alfredo Stroessner. Augusto Moreno, a “stronista” author, states that his own “estilo
* “singing the hymn of peace and labor.”
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es propio, y por lo mismo, bastante modesto”* and that his “fuente es directa”
[“source is direct”], which are appropriate for what he intends to accomplish with his
work: to try to “allanar el camino de las generaciones que vendran, al condensar . . .
la realidad historica de [su] tiempo” (20).T In this sense, one should not “juzgar la
obra de conformidad con las exigencias literarias,”* since he does not seek “el
veredicto consagratorio de la critica” (20).§ Rather, he attempts to “[volcar] el
receptaculo del tiempo, en la proportion del ambito nacional, sobre la conciencia del
pueblo, con el proposito de establecer la concordancia entre los ideales enunciados y
las realidades concretadas, entre las promesas y las realizaciones” (Epoca 32).** He
thus recognizes that, unlike literary texts, political texts require, for their author’s
authority to be established, that the veracity of their propositions be verified by
means of a comparison between the text and the real. Political discourse is, in terms
of the different functions of language that Jakobson outlines, a referential type of
discourse, a discourse that must literally perform a re-presentation of the real, in that
it must always point to the presence of its referents, either in its present or future
forms.1 1
Referentiality implies that political discourses do not produce texts that,
unlike literary texts, can be read independently of their authors. On the contrary,
they are an index of the author’s authority, which cannot be dissociated from the
politician’s legitimacy as a representative. All of the “stronista” texts I have read
emphasize both Stroessner’s public figure and his personal life, which must be at the
* “style is his own and, therefore, very modest.”
1 “open the path for the coining generations by condensing. . . the historical reality of [his] time.”
* “evaluate the work according to literaiy rules.”
§ “the critics’ consacrating verdict.”
“[turn] the receptacle of time, on the national level, over the people’s consciousness, in order to
establish a concordance between the ideals enunciated and the realities actualized, between the
promises and the realizations.”
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12
same time a realization and an example of the government’s ideology. These
texts thus provide the reader either with the president’s biography, thereby indicating
that his trajectory, in reflecting his actions, is suited for the position he occupies, or
with the symbols of his capacity, such as the medals he was awarded. Within this
cohesive image of the Head of State, political authority and representativity must
necessarily meet the author’s textual authority and representations. One may thus
find in the “stronista” political discourse an affirmation of the president’s “sincerity,”
that is, of the truthfulness of his statements. For Moreno, “aquella figura altiva
[Stroessner] daba una sensation cierta de sinceridad y honradez, de interes profundo
en los problemas nacionales, y de capacidad para resolverlos” (38).* However, this
sincerety requires, on the readers’ part, en equal openheartedness. “Acercad,”
Moreno urges his readers, “por un instante vuestro corazon a estas palabras [de
Stroessner], haced que ellas lleguen con honestidad a vuestra conciencia ciudadana”
(30). ' If Stroessner’s words are not heard or read with the same sincerity or
openheartedness with which they were uttered, listeners and readers may overlook
their truthfulness, or, worse, they might misconstrue it as its opposite, untruthfulness.
In this sense, Stroessner may only claim his rights as a legitimate political
representative if the representations of such legitimacy are, in turn, legitimate ones, if
the truth of such representations may be verified once we compare them with the
facts. That is why the coincidence between Stroessner’s “realizaciones”
[“realizations”] and his “pensamientos” [“thoughts”] (Moreno 14) constitutes what
Moreno calls the “historical truth” he attempts to ascertain in its “exactitude” by
“that noble figure [Stroessner] gave [him] the infallible sensation of sincerity and honesty, of a
profound interest in the national problems, and of the capacity to resolve them.”
1 “For a moment, bring your hearts close to these words [Stroessner’s], make them touch with honesty
your consciousness as citizens.”
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means of an “abstraction total de [sus] convicciones partidarias” (Moreno 19).
The result of this meeting of both the political and the textual processes of
legitimation is that they operate within a crisscrossed system of production of truth.
Whereas political legitimacy must be established by means of ideological
representations, discursive legitimacy must be confirmed by a comparison with
political action. Truthfulness within the “stronista” political discourse is thus
underscored by the use of rhetorical formulas or phrases that serve as indicators of
the text’s referentiality because of their use either of demonstrative verbs and
expressions or of terms pertaining to the semantic field of the factual or the real, such
as the phrase “[l]os hechos que son a veces mas elocuentes que las palabras, ponen a
la vista, en efecto, que . . . .” (Mensaje del Excelentisimo vii). '
Stroessner’s political discourses are, indeed, filled with representations of
facts, which sometimes consist of the mere naming of public works or the inclusion
in his texts of tables, charts, and pictures. Such a profusion of representations
produces a reiterative effect, which is the result of the referentiality of a political
discourse that postulates a full and all-encompassing identity between political
representatives, the people, and the nation. Although this reiterative effect, in this
sense, should not be confused with the mere act of begging the question, it does point
to the frailty of discourse, as we notice in Moreno’s concern with the signification of
some of the defining principles of the “stronista” government. He notes:
PAZ, DEMOCRACIA Y JUSTICIA SOCIAL: acepciones que
independientemente involucran realidades abstractas, y por lo mismo desabridas
y absurdas; pero que concebidas como eslabones de un sistema politico, enfocan
en el terreno de su realization, el panorama de la verdadera felicidad
humana.........
PAZ, DEMOCRACIA Y JUSTICIA SOCIAL: reflejadas nitidamente como
* “total abstraction from [his] party beliefs.”
f “[f|acts, which are sometimes more telling than words, evidences, in fact, that
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realidades tangibles, a traves de los hechos, de las cosas realizadas, porque
se observan y se palpan a poco que miramos esta pacifica convivencia nacional,
y a poco que nos ponemos en contacto con las masas populares. (39)
If “abstract realities” cannot be comprehended in themselves, but only in the
concreteness of the factum, it is because, in their abstractness, they may be
appropriated, and therefore distorted and devalued, by those who illegitimately use
them. Within the “stronista” discourse, Augusto Roa Bastos was one of those
usurpers.
6.3. The Exiled Author Writes Back
In the polemic that we may reconstruct between Augusto Roa Bastos and
Alfredo Stroessner, what is at stake is not exactly the definition of democracy. With
the exception of a few points, such as the possible place for communism within a
democratic regime, Stroessner and Roa Bastos’s definition of democracy are quite
similar. In fact, Roa Bastos’s definition of what he calls a pluralistic democracy
coincides, to a great extent, with the general notion of democracy. According to Roa
Bastos, a pluralistic democracy is a “tarea de la sociedad en su conjunto” (“Politica”
17).* It requires “la activa y mayoritaria participation popular” (“Autocracia” 10),*
which constitutes, indeed, “el basamento de la democracia,” “el concepto fiindante
de las mayorias democraticas” (“Autocracia” 17).§ Democratic pluralism is the
“juego libre y organico de las diversas corrientes participativas de pensamiento y
“PEACE, DEMOCRACY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: concepts that independently, involve abstract,
and therefore insipid and absurd, realities; but, once conceived as the links of a political system, they
evince, in the domain of their realization, the panorama of hue human happiness.........
PEACE, DEMOCRACY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: clearly reflected as tangible realities, through
what is done, the things realized, because they are observable and palpable as soon as we look at this
peaceful national coexistence and as soon as we establish contact with the popular masses.”
* “a task for society as a whole.”
: “the active participation of the majority of the population.”
5 “the basis for democracy,” “the founding concept of democratic majority.”
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opinion” (“Autocracia” 13),* which entails not only the possibility of dissident
criticism (“La situacion en Paraguay, 1”), but also a balance of power between
different socio-political groups (“Autocracia” 16). An alternation and balance of
forces is indeed implicit in the concept of res publica. bearing in mind that this
“public thing” is not a private property (“La situacion en Paraguay, 3;”
“Democracia” 7), but rather the general interest (“La situacion en Paraguay, 2”).
That is, in effect, the very definition of democracy, the demos cratos that Stroessner
also claims for his definition of Paraguay’s democracy. What is then at stake in
the polemic between Roa Bastos and Stroessner is not exactly a struggle over
definition, but rather a struggle over legitimacy. Who can claim to be, after all, the
legitimate representative of a democratic political system?1 3
In the 1960s, Roa Bastos had two of his non-fictional writings published in
the post-revolutionary Cuban journal Casa de las Americas: "Paraguay ante la
necesidad de su segunda independencia" and a letter to Roberto Fernandez Retamar,
included in the section "Cartas a la casa." In the former text, Roa Bastos asserts that
the ruling classes have striven to conceal the "crueles estructuras de domination y
opresion"1 according to their own class interests and “bajo la cortina de humo de un
palabrerio fetichista" (21).* “Under a smokescreen,” Roa Bastos says, clearly using
the Marxist logic of unmasking in order to situate ideological constructs in relation to
objective social relations. In thus following that logic, Roa Bastos not only sees
objective relations as being “deformed,” "distorted," or "camouflaged" by that
babble, but he must also, as a consequence, perform a critique of such distortion or
camouflage. He thus points out what he calls "la polucion del lenguaje" [“the
* “free and organic game between the different participating currents of thought and opinion.”
f “cruel structures of domination and oppression.”
: “under a smokescreen of fetishist babble.”
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language pollution”] within political discourse ["Hacia" 8; 11], which is evinced
in certain euphemisms, inasmuch as they indicate a discrepancy between the real and
the political discourse on the real. Such a discrepancy points to an emptiness of
discourse, a weakening of its capacity to signify something other than itself, which,
in Marxism, is conceptualized as ideology.
For Roa Bastos, "[e]n este vasto delirio patologico de contamination,
adulteration y vaciamiento de nombres, conceptos y definiciones, la realidad politica
ha infestado el lenguaje,”* in that the latter "se ha convertido en vaciadero de las
supercherias mas cinicas que registra la historia cultural y politica de la civilization"
("Hacia" 8)/ These "alteraciones y adulteraciones semanticas en la nomenclatura
del poder,"1 which "forman parte de las manipulaciones del arsenal ideologico del
los imperios" ("Hacia" 6),§ lead, under totalitarian regimes, to a "realidad
desnaturalizada y fantasmalizada donde el derecho y la justicia han sido destruidos
implacablemente y han sido vaciados de sus contenidos legitimos y esenciales"
("Derecho" 34).** Because an empty discourse has phantasmalized the real, political
practice has become, in turn, a "representation" through which the “stronista” regime
attempts to forge the "image" or "illusion" of a democratic government. That is what
Roa Bastos calls "el 'blanqueo' democratico" [“democratic ‘whitening’”], by means
of which the regime "erigi[o] la fachada constitucional" ("Paraguay: Anatomia" 8).ft
As a facade or representation, “stronismo” becomes a fictionalization of political
* “in this wide pathological delirium of contamination, adulteration and emptying of names, concepts,
and definitions, political reality has infested language.”
1 “has become a dump for the most cynical tricks the history of our civilization’s culture and politics
has ever registered.”
1 “semantic alterations and adulterations within the nomenclature of power.”
5 “partake of the manipulation of the ideological arsenal of empires.”
* * “denaturalized and phantasmatic reality where the law and justice have been relentlessly destroyed
and emptied of their legitimate and essential meaning.”
T “erected a constitutional facade.”
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discourse, in that what Roa Bastos calls an "efecto de verosimilitud" [“effect of
verisimilitude”] ("Paraguay: Anatomia" 8) displaces the truth-value of the statements
made.1 4 In this sense, if ideological "illusions" create effects of verisimilitude, their
"desbaratamiento" or "desenmascaramiento" [“unmasking”] — to use Roa Bastos's
terms — takes place precisely by means of a comparison with the real. For Roa
Bastos, a "supuesto sistema democratico" [“so-called democratic system] may be
"'diplomado' como tal,” [“declared as such on paper”], but it is "negado en los
hechos" [“denied in fact”] ("Politica" 17).1 5
Roa Bastos’s rationale is, quite obviously, that which defines political
discourses, but it then implies, with another turn of the screw, that Roa Bastos's
critique of the “stronista” political discourse must itself be a verifiably truthful
discourse. It must, in fact, be legitimated as the truthful discourse. Thus, when Roa
Bastos affirms that Stroessner’s regime "no admite la confrontacion de ideas ni se
halla dispuesto al dialogo,”* he also states that the regime "lo esta demostrando con
sus intermitentes escaladas represivas y preventivas” (“Paraguay: Anatomia” 10)/
And, when he declares that the regime "tolera menos aun la mas remota posibilidad
de alternancias o cambios,”* he adds that "lo prueban los fiiriosos ataques contra los
disidentes del partido oficialista" (10).§ What Roa Bastos attempts to ascertain by
means of a reference to facts is precisely the veracity of his statements, thereby
establishing a comparison between the said and the done. Veracity is thus inscribed
in Roa Bastos’s discourse through the use of certain expressions or terms, such as
"testimoniar" [“testify”] (Tiranosaurio 21), and it is reinforced by his recourse to
referential texts, such as statistics, documents, or reports ("Paraguay: anatomia" 8),
* “neither accepts the confrontation of ideas, nor is it open to dialogue.”
f “is demonstrating it with its intermittent escalation of repression and prevention.”
1 “tolerates even less the slightest possibility of alternations or changes.”
” “the violent attacks against dissidents of the official party prove it.”
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the most important of which being "el Archivo del Terror," the secret archives of
the political police. In these archives, as Roa Bastos puts it, the regime "dejo intacto
el repositorio de sus atrocidades y desmanes, documentados fecha por fecha y
nombre por nombre" ("Politica" 21).*
Through legitimacy, which is in effect taken for granted, Roa Bastos is able
to "call things by their name" ("Unidad latinoamericana, 1"), performing a
tautological gesture of sorts. He may, in other words, call an illusion an illusion and
thereby redefine the “stronista” regime in relation to both the general concept of
democracy and the “stronista” regime's concept of itself as a democratic government.
In his "Carta abierta al pueblo paraguayo," for example, Roa Bastos states that the
peace Stroessner’s government claims to have established "solo es real en apariencia.
No puede ser, sino por una monstruosa contradiction, el resultado de un permanente
estado de guerra interno" (186; see also "Stroessner, el supremo" [85]; Tiranosaurio
[13]).^ He thus renames the “stronista” peace, calling it "la 'paz del estado de
sitio,’”* which is, according to Roa Bastos, the "emblema que ha acunado y defmido
mejor que ningun otro la verdadera naturaleza de esta 'democracia' totalitaria"
("Stroessner, el supremo" 85).s For Roa Bastos, the “stronista” regime utilized “el
terror” [“terror”] and “el miedo” [“fear”] as “los elementos mas eficientes de una
pretendida preservation de la paz publica” (“La situacion en Paraguay, 2”),**
therefore installing “el miedo en la sociedad paraguaya como la unica forma posible
de conciencia publica” ('Tiranosaurio 13).^ Roa Bastos’s rhetorical strategy is thus
* “left intact the repository of its atrocities and excesses, registered date after date, name after name.”
1 “is only real in appearance. It can only be, by means of a horrendous contradiction, the result of a
permanent internal state of war.”
1 “the ‘peace of the state of siege.
§ “emblem that has best defined the true nature of this totalitarian ‘democracy.’”
* * “the most effective elements of a supposed preservation of public peace.”
1 “fear within Paraguayan society as the only possible form of public consciousness.”
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to reverse the key elements defining the “stronismo” into their opposite, which he
also performs in relation to the idea of an unprecedented economic and material
progress, the notion of a national unity, the legality or constitutionality of the
regime’s actions, freedom, the nation’s sovereignty, the concept of res publica.
political representativity, and the distribution of power among different sectors of the
government.1 6
Parallel to this reversed redefinition of the “stronista” regime, Roa Bastos
textually devalues Stroessner and his discourse, using a sometimes ironic, sometimes
comic tone, name-calling or qualifications, and even logical fallacies, as when he
states that Stroessner has “origen y naturaleza anomalos y bastardos” (“Paraguay:
Anatomia” 7),* which is, of course, an ad hominem. Particularly suggestive is Roa
Bastos’s reference to Stroessner’s collaborators as “tarados o bufones de palacio”
(“Carta abierta” 185)/ for it points to a lowering of the register that the “stronista”
authors used to describe “stronismo.” In El tiranosaurio del Paraguay da sus ultimas
boqueadas (1986), a sort of pamphlet in which Roa Bastos foresees, and also
invokes, Stroessner’s fall from power, the solemn tone used in the “stronista”
discourse itself is replaced by a sometimes ironic, sometimes comic tone. In this
pamphlet, Roa Bastos says:
Vientos de fronda estan arrancando escamas galoneadas del tiranosaurio que
aplasta al pueblo paraguayo desde hace mas de treinta anos. O trescientos
millones de anos. Lo mismo da. Estos monstruos antediluvianos, antihumanos,
anulan las coordenadas de tiempo y lugar en la pesadilla de pavor que ellos
producen.
El 4 de mayo de 1954 ..., este general muy particular, de grandes belfos
colgantes, este animal ya casi mltico endiosado como un totem por el fanatismo
de sus sicarios y sectarios y por el miedo de sus victimas, copo el poder.
Ahuyento o amarro a su inmensa cola dentada las especies de saurios mas
pequenos civiles y militares, y armo su madriguera artillada. Acto seguido, la
* “anomalous and bastard origin and nature.”
f “palace cretins or buffoons.”
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alimana prehistorica se instalo a perpetuidad en el historico sillon de los
Lopez. (9)
This tragicomic portrayal of Stroessner, which Roa Bastos accomplishes through the
metaphoric figure of a decaying dinosaur, is also performed by means of other
stylistic devices, such as Roa Bastos’s play with sentence structure. Stroessner, he
says, “[ajrio de tornatras apenas es” (10)/ All of these comic effects perform a
degradation of Stroessner’s public figure, which ultimately calls for a correction
whereby the degraded form is properly placed. For one only points out that
Stroessner uses the Presidential Palace “de cubil, de apostadero, de adoratorio[,]
[ajcaso tambien para algunos otros usos menos confesables” (9)* in order to say:
confess and repent.1 7 But, for a speaker to say that, he must have the authority of a
legitimate representative, and that is yet another turn of the screw, which I have
mentioned earlier.
In “Paraguay ante la necesidad de su segunda independencia,” Roa Bastos
states that, in view of the “estado de enajenacion a que ha sido sometida la cultura
paraguaya” (“Paraguay ante la necesidad” 21),§ the intellectuals “que no quieren
plegarse, . . . que se resisten a capitular, . . . que, en suma, quieren ver claro y hablar
claro . . . unen action y pensamiento” (“Paraguay ante la necesidad” 22).** As we
have seen in relation to the “stronista” discourse, the claim for both a transparency of
’ “The winds of revolt are ripping off the scales of the striped tyrannosaur who crashes the
Paraguayan people for over thirty years. Or three hundred million years. It makes no difference.
These ante-diluvia, anti-human monsters annul all the coordinates of time and space in the terror-
filling nightmare they create.
On May 4, 1954 ..., this peculiar general, with big, hanging lips, this almost mythical animal,
deified like a totem through the fanaticism of his hit men and his followers and through the fear of his
victims, took over the power. He chased away or tied to his immense serrated tail the species of
smaller saurians, both civilians and militaries, and he set up his armed dens. Act n, the prehistoric
pest has installed himself, in perpetuity, in the historical seat of the Lopezes.”
7 “a backward Arian is he.”
1 “as a den, a station, a shrinef] [pjerhaps also for other, less confessable uses.”
5 “state of alienation to which Paraguayan culture has been subjected.”
“who do not want to yield, .. . who resist all forms of capitulation,. . . who, in short, wish to see
clearly and to speak clearly .. . combine action and thought.”
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discourse and a combination of theory and praxis may serve as a parameter for
the speaker’s legitimacy, particularly within political discourse. Another parameter
that appears in Roa Bastos’s texts is that of identification, without which one cannot
claim to be a legitimate representative of the people. In “El escritor, el legislador y
la palabra” (1990), for instance, Roa Bastos states that “[e]n [su] carater de
trabajador de la cultura, de origen campesino [el] mismo, [es] muy sensible a la
suerte de esta gente que es [su] gente.”* Furthermore, he notes that “[p]or ello la casi
totalidad de [su] obra esta centrada en el mundo campesino.”^ Similarly, in his
“Carta abierta al pueblo paraguayo” (1986) he affirms that “[a] lo largo de estos
cuarenta anos de exilio no [ha] estado separado un solo dia de su [del pueblo
paraguayo] pulso lejano, de su realidad cotidiana, de sus viejas aspiraciones, de sus
nuevas viscisitudes [sic] y esperanzas” (179).5 1 In relation to the nation itself, identity
may take the form of historical continuity, as in “stronismo.” Hence, Roa Bastos
asserts that the idea that the people’s authority is superior to that of the King, which
the Comuneros proposed, is “el pronunciamiento precursor de toda la emancipation
americana,”§ including, of course, the second independence he proposes for
Paraguay (“Paraguay ante la necesidad”).
On a textual level, the legitimacy that representatives may claim through
identity may be performed by means of different rhetorical strategies, the most
common of which being the use of formulas such as “the true.” In Roa Bastos’s
political essays and articles, we verify, for example, the use of modifiers such as
* “[a]s a cultural producer who comes from the countryside, [he is] veiy sensitive to the future of this
people who is [his] people.”
' “[f]or this reason almost all of [his] works focus on the world of the peasantry .”
1 “[throughout these forty years of exile, [he] has not been apart one single day from its [the
Paraguayan people’s] distant pulse, from its daily reality, from its long held aspirations, from its new
vicissitudes and hopes.”
5 “the declaration that precedes all of the American emancipation.”
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294
“true,” “authentic,” “genuine,” and “the only.” He also makes constant use of
two different tones: the dramatic and the solemn or laudatory. The first one is used
to describe Stroessner’s regime, whereas the second one is used to depict the
Paraguayan people or those who support a definition of the best political system for
Paraguay that is similar to his own. Generally speaking, these tones are achieved
through a word-choice that stems from specific semantic fields, which constitute
certain ideologemes of Roa Bastos’s political discourse. Regarding the solemn or
laudatory tone, one may find in Roa Bastos’s discourse the semantic fields of light,
nobility, and heroism, whereas he constructs the dramatic tone upon the semantic
fields of darkness, destruction, death, ill, and victimization or martyrdom.
Both the dramatic and laudatory tones reinforce the dichotomy that Roa
Bastos proposes between his legitimacy and that of Stroessner, but they also lend
themselves to a Manichaean division. Roa Bastos himself reproached Manichaeism
in his “Carta abierta al pueblo paraguayo” (183-84), but it is nevertheless epitomized
by what Roa Bastos calls a “duelo dantesco” [“Dantesque duel”] between absolutism
and humanism (“La unidad latinoamericana, 1”) and by the titles of the first two
sections of El tiranosaurio del Paraguay da sus ultimas boqueadas: “El palacio
bianco” [“The White Palace”] and “El agujero negro” [“The Black Hole”]. In fact,
the beginning of this text is a sort of fairy tale in which the figure of the
“tiranosaurio” [“tyrannosaur”] contrasts with the “white palace” with “escalinatas de
marmol y torrecillas aereas [y] que se refleja desde el altozano en las soleadas y
sensuales aguas de la bahia de Asuncion semejante a una mujer en reposo” (9).*
Against the whiteness of the palace — the site that represents not only the autonomy,
independence, and sovereignty of Paraguay as a nation, but also the very legitimacy
* “steps of marble and lofty towers [and] that is reflected from the hillock upon the sunny and sensual
waters of the bay of Asuncion like a woman at rest.”
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295
of political representativity — , one should more clearly see the blackness of the
hole that Stroessner’s regime created. Constrasting black and white, good and evil,
Roa Bastos shows, before everyone’s eyes, the inappropriateness of a tyrannosaur,
sitting in what Roa Bastos calls “el historico sillon del los Lopez” (9),* the very seat
of the nation’s and the Paraguayan people’s highest political representative. Such a
contrast should thus evince that a “tyrannosaur” can only occupy such a position by
means of an illegitimate appropriation of it.
When Roa Bastos makes use of a concept such as “mal absoluto” (“Politica”
22), he may be settling, within his own discourse, the struggle over the legitimacy of
national representatives, for an absolute evil, because of the essentialism implied in
such a notion, leaves no room for doubt as to what or who may claim that legitimacy.
However, a comparison between both his and the “stronista” political discourse, such
as the one I have performed, may afford us another perspective. In “La situation en
Paraguay, 2,” Roa Bastos states that the process of redemocratization entails “un
contrato democratico, . . . un pacto politico y social no escrito, pero implicito en las
reglas del juego del proceso [de democratization] que se ha iniciado por la fuerza
misma de las circunstancias que vive el paisWhat the idea of a game with a
specific set of rules implies is that, within the political realm as well, players have
equal (but not necessarily the same) investments in the game. They must recognize
the rules structuring the game as it is played, otherwise they may be disqualified as
players. In so doing, both Roa Bastos and the ideologues of “stronismo” utilize
similar strategies in order to construct their discourses and to claim legitimacy as
speakers and national representatives. Both speakers recognize the referentiality of
’ “the historical bench of the Lopezes.”
' “a democratic contract,. . . a political and political and social pact that is unwritten but implicit the
rules of the game of the process [of democratization] that was triggered by the very force of the
circumstances the country experiences.”
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296
political discourses and attempt not only to use the notion of an emptiness of
discourse in order to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the competing discourse, but
also to prove the veracity of their own discourse. By means of all the strategies I
have analyzed, both speakers construct their discourses according to a process of
devaluation of the competing speaker and his discourse, paralleled by a valorization
of their own. Both Roa Bastos and Stroessner thereby claim their authority as
speakers.
In 1990, over a year after a coup d’etat deposed Stroessner, Roa Bastos proposed to
hand the Premio Cervantes, which he had won that year, to the Paraguayan people,
whose “depositario” [“receiver”] — according to the deputy Eduardo Venialgo, who
served as Roa Bastos’s “messenger” — would be the Nation’s Congress (“Magnifica
pieza”). On June 2, 1990, the Paraguayan newspaper Ultima Hora published a
picture of Roa Bastos at the moment when, during the ceremony, the writer spoke to
the Congressmen. The legend underneath the picture reads: “jQuien diria!: Augusto
Roa Bastos se dirige a los representantes del pueblo desde la tarima, que
generalmente utiliza el Presidente de la Republica.”* To speak from the stand used
by the president does not mean, however, that Roa Bastos has exchanged places with
Stroessner — an idea that the latter’s exile after the coup and the former’s recognition
might suggest — and even less that Roa Bastos now speaks from the president’s
standpoint, that is, from the position of one of the nation’s most important political
representatives. It enacts though the recognition of his authority as a speaker, as a
possible interlocutor within the political debate, but from the standpoint of a cultural
producer. In “Magnifica pieza al estilo Roa,” one sees not only that the “opinions”
* “Who would have guessed!: Augusto Roa Bastos addresses the people’s representatives from the
dais generally used by the President of the Republic.”
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on Roa Bastos’s speech, which the newspaper Ultima Hora collected, function
precisely as such a recognition, but also that, in serving this function, they
underscore the recognition that Roa Bastos himself performed when he handed the
Premio Cervantes to the Congress.
For an award that, as Roa Bastos claimed, belonged to the people could only
be handed to the Congress if the latter is recognized as a legitimate representative of
the former. In so doing, Roa Bastos also claimed for himself a recognition of his
capacity, as a cultural producer, to represent the people. By means of this mutual
recognition, Roa Bastos may claim — against political discourses, such as the
“stronista,” that attempted to “descalificar[lo] y desacreditar”* his political position-
takings by means of “amenazas y chantajes”1 (Tiranosaurio 18) — not only his
legitimacy as a cultural representative, but also his authority as a speaker. In a note
to El tiranosaurio del Paraguay da sus ultimas boqueadas. Roa Bastos says: “Como
he visto utilizado fiiera de contexto en algunas publicaciones este nombre
emblematico [tiranosaurio] con el que quise definir la monstruosidad del poder
totalitario erigido en tirania ‘constitucional,’ me parecio oportuno reivindicarlo en su
verdadera signification en el presente” (33)7 But who can say what the “true
meaning” of a name is if not an auctor. especially an honest one?
“No poseo otros titulos que avalen este mensaje,”5 says Roa Bastos in his
“Carta abierta al pueblo paraguayo” (1986), “[s]alvo, tal vez, el de ser un ciudadano
comun, un escritor independiente; quiero decir, un ciudadano que no milita en
* “disqualify [him] and to discredit.”
^ “threats and blackmail.”
1 “As I have seen this emblematic name [tyrannosaur] — with which I wished to define the
monstrosity of a totalitarian power established as a ‘constitutional’ tyranny — being utilized out of
context in some publications, it seemed to me opportune to claim its true meaning at the present
time.”
' “I do not possess any other title that might endorse this message.”
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298
ninguna agrupacion partidaria . . ” (179).* And he continues: “No tengo
alquilada mi pluma a ningun poder de la tierra. Independencia que es el fundamento
de mi libertad individual y del compromiso de mi obra con la colectividad en su
conjunto. Me considero exento totalmente, desde siempre y para siempre, de
ambiciones pobticas” (179-80)/ Almost at the age of sixty-nine, Roa Bastos claims
to be past “los espejismos de la juventud” (180).* And, because he is “[l]ibre de
resentimientos y frustraciones”® (180), he implies, he is able to try and construct an
encompassing vision of his country, which is also part and parcel of his “Carta
abierta,” a manifesto in favor of national reconciliation. Likewise, even if he attacks
Stroessner, he does so “con lealtad y espiritu de justicia.”* * (182), and he would
continue to do so “sin encono ni rencores personales, pues lo que esta en juego no
son cuestiones individuales, sino la totalidad de la vida colectiva cuya soberania ha
sido usurpada” (182).**
Unlike Luis da Silva in Ramos’s Angustia. Augusto Roa Bastos did have his
social value recognized once political opponents ousted the usurper. Perhaps
through his symbolic struggle with the “stronista” regime, Roa Bastos was able to
maintain a stable, current social value before those who opposed Stroessner’s
government. In this sense, exile may prove to be a social space from which one may
effectively write back to dictators. If, as Roa Bastos himself notes, he had remained
in Paraguay, his voice “se habria sumado de seguro a la forzosa y forzada mudez
“Except, perhaps, that of being a common citizen, an independent writer; I mean, a citizen who is a
member of no political party ...”
1 “I do not have my pen pawned to any power on earth. Independence is the basis for my personal
freedom and for the commitment of my work with the community as a whole. I see myself as being
totally exempt, forever and ever, from political ambition.”
; “the illusions of youth.”
5 “[fjree from resentment and frustrations.”
* ’ “with loyalty and the spirit of justice.”
“with neither anger nor personal resentment, for what is at stake is not personal issues, but the
totality of the community’s life, whose sovereignty has been usurped.”
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299
general” (“Carta abierta” 182).* Nonetheless, in exile he was able not only to
deploy his social and symbolic capital, but also to use the very notion of phantasms
in order to negotiate, socially and subjectively, the socio-phantasmatic devaluations
that many suffer because of their lack of economic or political capital, as in Ramos’s
and Roa Bastos’s novels. Yet, the negotiations between members of different fields
appear to be traversed by refractions through which members of a specific field
reproduce its structuring rules.1 8
After the military coup that deposed Stroessner, Roa Bastos proposed to the
nation, via its president, the formation of a multi-partisan cultural forum, understood
as a space in which activities specifically related to cultural production might foster
an active collaboration and an exchange among different political groups and
between these and civil society as a whole (“Roa Bastos pide”). Although Roa
Bastos’s proposal, which entailed an intervention of cultural production in the
organization of the struggles between political parties, was welcomed and profusely
circulated, it was not long before “se extinguiera como un neonato muerto al ver la
luz” (“El escritor, el legislador”).T According to one of his friends, a politician who
had read Roa Bastos’s proposal, the country was not ready for it yet. In politics, he
said, they have unavoidable priorities (“El escritor, el legislador”). Contrary to what
Roa Bastos had expected, the limits between cultural production and political action
had turned his proposal, which might have served as a guarantee against future
“phantasmalizations” of Paraguayan citizens, into another phantasm.
* “would certainly have joined the forced general muteness.”
f “it vanished like a newly bom who died at the moment of birth.”
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300
Notes
1
These articles are: “Los exilios del escritor en el Paraguay” (1978), “El
exilio interno y externo del escritor en el Paraguay” (1979), and “La escritura: una
metafora del exilio” (1988). One should also see “Augusto Roa Bastos: exilio y
escritura” (1983), an interview with Saul Sosnowski and Pablo Urbanyi (10; 12). All
three articles are greatly similar regarding the ideas Roa Bastos puts forward in them;
indeed, the second article is an abridged and slightly modified version of the first
one.
2
In Literature and Inner Exile (1980), Paul Ilie utilizes the same concept in
order to rethink the question of exile during Francoist Spain, which Roa Bastos
himself compares to that of exile during dictatorial Paraguay (“Exilios del escritor”
33). Ilie contends not only that exile is a “mental condition” (2), but also that — this
being the case -- those who remain in the country are subjected to exile as much as
those who are forced to part.
3
When discussing the relation between Paraguayan intellectuals and exile,
Roa Bastos qualifies Latin America as “nuestra alienada y oprimida America Latina”
[“our alienated and oppressed Latin America”] (“Exilios del escritor” 34), thus
adhering to the idea, proposed by leftist Latin American intellectuals, of European
and American political and economic domination over the region.
Ilie’s analysis of inner exile also draws on the concept of alienation, which he
takes in a more psychological than philosophical sense (either Marxist, as in Rama’s
and Roa Bastos’s texts, or Existentialist), since the focus of his study lies in the
“internal structures of exile” (2), that is, the psychology of exile. He contends not
only that “exile is a state of mind whose emotions and values respond to separation
and severance as conditions in themselves” (2), but also that, as a result, neither
Marxism’s economics nor Existentialism’s humanism comprehend the nuances of
exile.
4
As Ricoeur notes, the concept of alienation, for Marx, also involves a
“derealization” on the workers’ end (39).
5
In “Roa Bastos por Roa Bastos,” the Paraguayan writer also characterizes
himself as a “oscuro fantasma” [“obscure phantasm”] and mentions “los numerosos
fantasmas que son el [Roa Bastos] o que lo han hecho a el” [“the many phantasms
who are him [Roa Bastos] or have made him”] (6).
6
Roa Bastos appears to have been haunted by the same phantasm of the
return to one’s origins, which he assigns to Paraguayan exiles in general. See
“Nacimiento de un ciudadano” (11), “Carta abierta al pueblo paraguayo” (180-81),
and Roa Bastos’s comments on the expulsion of 1982, quoted in Tovar’s book (31),
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301
7
Both Ilie and Kaminsky point out the feeling of being a foreign at
home, which exiles experience when returning to their homelands. For Ilie, this is
because exile is the psychological perception of one’s own misfittedness and hence
does not necessarily imply a geographical dislocation. As for Kaminsky, she
understands that in terms of an impossibility of establishing a national identity,
which is evinced once the transparency of identity is called into question.
8
Emphasis on peace and social order, as a form of retaining the State’s
control over civil society, must be understood, on the one hand, as a characteristic of
the military regimes of the Southern Cone. As Carlos R. Miranda points out, “the
concept that internal political change was understood as a security threat managed to
create considerable ideological content in the political processes of authoritarian
regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay” (53). On the other
hand, this emphasis must be comprehended within the context of the tumultuous
Paraguayan politics and history. For not only did the country undergo, in the
twentieth century alone, two civil wars (1922 and 1947) and an international war (the
Chaco War, 1932-1935), but it also fell prey to several coups d’etat, through which
successive presidents attempted to rule the country.
9
I am drawing here on Schwarz’s “Nacional por subtrapao.”
10
Taking into account the history of Paraguayan politics, one must note that
this interval separating Paraguayans from their origins corresponds to the period
during which the opposing party, the Partido Liberal, governed the country (1904-
1936). One must also note that the Liberal Party is, from the “Colorado” point of
view a continuation of the “legionarios” [“legionnaires”], the “descendants of the old
Paraguayan upper class, which had fled the country during the rule of Francia and
the Lopezes” (Lewis 19) and formed the Paraguayan Legion, fighting in the Triple
Alliance War alongside the Argentine army. Once the upper class regained power
after Solano Lopez’s defeat in the war, it began selling off to foreigners the state’s
lands and businesses (Lewis 19), which Francia had confiscated from the landed
oligarchy. In the twentieth century, the Liberal Party was responsible, due to the
constant battle for power between the different factions of the party, for dividing up
the nation, which was thrown into a state of political ups-and-downs.
n
By classifying the “stronista” political discourse as a referential discourse,
I do not mean to say that it is a discourse constituted solely by the referential
function. As Jakobson notes, “[ajlthough we distinguish six basic aspects of
language, w e could, how ever, hardly find verbal m essages that w ould fulfill only one
function. The diversity lies not in a monopoly of some one of these several functions
but in a different hierarchical order of functions. The verbal structure of a
message depends primarily on the predominant function” (“Linguistics” 66).
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302
This may also involve other members of his family, since, in being
related to the president, they all become elements in the symbolic process of
legitimation of the president’s capacity to fulfill his functions and to represent the
nation and the people. Thus, Moreno includes, in his work, a picture of Stroessner’s
wife, in which one sees her inaugurating a monument dedicated to the mother (14).
The monument consists of a woman holding a child in her arms, and the association
established between the First Lady and the “stronista” concept of womanhood,
defined as motherhood, is underscored by the fact that Moreno characterizes Mrs.
Stroessner as “una dignisima mujer de nuestra tierra” [“a most respectable woman
from our land”] (13). He thus adds, to the figure of Mrs. Stroessner, another
ideologeme characteristic of the “stronista” political discourse, namely, nationalism.
In this sense, one cannot read the womanhood inscribed in the picture and
epitomized in the figure of Mrs. Stroessner without associating it with nationalism.
13
Quite illuminating, here, is the fact that Juan Maria Carrom, in an article
published in the newspaper El diario. establishes a direct correlation between Roa
Bastos’s Yo. el supremo and the beginning of the transition to a democratic regime
in Paraguay. If, according to Carrom, one may say that certain literary works have a
tremendous importance in the formation of a people’s collective consciousness, Roa
Bastos’s Yo. el supremo is, for Paraguayans, the novel of redemocratization, for the
work implies “una obertura [sic] del nuevo tiempo que qu[ieren] construir en paz,
dignidad y libertad” [“an aperture for the new times that [they] wish to construct,
with peace, dignity, and freedom”]. “Es muy posible,” Carrom adds, “que Yo. el
supremo sea considerado en el futuro como el libro de la democracia paraguaya” [“It
may very well be that in the future I the Supreme will be considered the book of
Paraguayan democracy”]. What is a direct relation between Roa Bastos’s literary
production and political regime in Carrom’s article appears to be translated, within
the field of cultural production, as the polyphony or dialogism of Roa Bastos’s novel.
1 4 One finds in Roa Bastos's texts several terms that, like "fachada,” function
as an indication of an illusion: "mimetismo" [“mimicry”] ("Derecho" 33), "formas
mimeticas y hasta parodicas" [“mimetic and even parodic forms”] ("Carta abierta"
184), "simulacro" [“simulacrum”] ("Paraguay: Anatomia" 6), "travestismo"
[“transvestism”] ("Paraguay: Anatomia" 7), "parodia" [“parody”] ("Paraguay:
Anatomia" 8), and "fachada teatral" [“theatrical facade”] ("Situation en Paraguay,
3").
15
Although Roa Bastos refers here to the post-stronista regime, I do not find
it far-fetched to apply the same idea to the “stronista” political discourse, for Roa
Bastos’s critique to the new regime is based on the fact that it has been established,
from Roa Bastos’s point of view, within “la linea ideologica del continuismo
autoritario” [“the ideological line of authoritarian continuity”] (“Politica” 16).
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303
1 6 Ricoeur points out how Marx’s concept of ideology stems from a
“physical or physiological experience, the experience of the inverted image found in
a camera or in the retina” (4). Through this optical metaphor, Marx conceptualized
ideology also as a form of inverted image of reality, which produces, as Ricoeur
notes, “distortions through reversal” (4). In this sense, Marx’s concept of ideology
easily lends itself, as a mode of cognition, to an interpretation of the
discrepancies one finds between dictatorial discourses and socio-political practices.
17
One must here bear in mind that, etymologically, the verb “to degrade”
comes from the late ecclesiastical Latin “degradare,” and its meaning is based on the
notion of hierarchy. In the Oxford English Dictionary, it is defined as “to reduce
from a higher to a lower rank, to depose from a position of honor or estimation” and
“to depose (a person) formally from his degree, rank, or position of honor as an act
of punishment, as to degrade a knight.” In a more general sense, “to degrade” means
“to lower in estimation, to bring into dishonor or contempt,” and it may also indicate
a decrease in quality, meaning “to lower in character as quality, to debase” and “to
lower or reduce in price, strength, purity, etc.”
In an interview with Hector Febles, Roa Bastos states that what critics did not
see when reading Yo. el supremo was that there is not a single quotation in the novel
“que no este cambiada y que no este alterada y degradada a los fines que [el]
persig[ue]” [“that is not changed, that is not altered and degraded according to the
objectives that [he] pursue[s]” (qtd. in Bergero 35). For Bergero, that objective is to
degrade what she calls an “esquema verticalista de domination cultural” [“vertical
scheme of cultural domination”] (35). Nonetheless, as etymology itself indicates,
one cannot degrade anything without engaging in another vertical scheme, one
through which the writer, and consequently the critic as well, claim his authority as
an author, pointing to critics what they should have seen in his text.
1 8 For Bourdieu’s comments on the effect of refraction see The Rules of Art
(220) and The Field of Cultural Production (181-82).
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Conclusion
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El hombre les dictaba lecciones de anatomia, de cosmografia de magia: los rostros
escuchaban con ansiedad, como si advinaran la importancia de aquel examen, que
redimiria a uno de ellos de su condition de vana apariencia y lo interpolaria en el
mundo real. El hombre, en el suefio y en la vigilia, consideraba las respuestas de
sus fantasmas, no se dejaba embaucar por los impostores, adivinaba en ciertas
perplejidades una inteligencia creciente. Buscaba un alma que mereciera participar
en el universo.
Jorge Luis Borges, “Las ruinas circulares” (1941)*
I would like to conclude my readings on the effectivity of phantasms in both
Ramos’s and Roa Bastos’s fictional and non-fictional writings with a few
commentaries on possible unfoldings of these readings. I began this dissertation
with Angel Rama’s La ciudad letrada as a way of staging the logic of unmasking
that, mostly characteristic of Marxism, perceives phantasms as a sort of screen
between the subject and the objective world. In the negative relation that the logic of
unmasking proposes between the real and our discourses on the real, phantasms
would disappear. What the logic of unmasking has shown, however, is that there is
an unbridgeable gap between the real and the symbolic, in the sense that, contrary to
a Marxist tendency, the two do not coincide. Phantasms continue to exist, and our
eyes always betray us, to a certain degree. For what we should see are not only
bodies, matter, but those bodies and matter with their phantasms. Our eyes should
show us fuzzy beings clothed with imaginary constructs, as when the TV shows
“The man lectured his pupils on anatomy, cosmography, and magic: the faces listened anxiously and
tried to answer understandingly, as if they guessed the importance of that examination which would
redeem one of them from his condition of empty illusion and interpolate him into the real world.
Asleep or awake, the man thought over the answers of his phantoms, did not allow himself to be
deceived by impostors, and in certain perplexities he sensed a growing intelligence. He was seeking a
soul worthy of participating in the universe.”
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305
doubled images. When that happens, Brazilians say that “a televisao esta com
fantasmas.”*
That does not mean to say, however, that we should fall into a sort of post
modern virtual world where all types of discourses have been falling into the
category of fiction. Rather, we should attempt to develop this kind of fuzzy vision
through which we may see phantasms exist in the real. In this regard, we should also
take Freud’s concern with finding the real behind fantasies as seriously as we do now
in relation to the disappearance of the real in psychoanalysis. If for no other reason,
we should do it at least out of a concern for justice, as Derrida puts it, because the
phantasmalization of those who have been sexually molested, of the “desaparecidos”
[“missing”], or of those who have been tortured has left lasting effects, even though
the reality of the imprisonment, torture, and assassination have all, like any fact in
life, entered the uncertain terrain we call history. In this sense, we must account for
the disappearance of the real in psychoanalysis in a more rigorous manner. We must
bear in mind that what patients relate to Freud, when they lay down in his famous
analytic couch, are events of their own personal history, things past and remembered.
Reality, in this sense, has always already vanished. Nonetheless, as I pointed out at
the end of chapter one, the act of narrating these vanished events occur within the
real, that of the patient in the couch talking to his analyst. Within this reality,
phantasms are being constructed, the phantasm that is psychoanalysis itself and those
which the analysand must of necessity negotiate with the analyst. Perhaps the
second trauma of phantasmalization through sexual molestation or torture is
* “the TV has phantasms.”
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306
precisely that, to ascertain the truth of his or her stories, those who were
subjected to it must construct other phantasms through which other subjects will see
(or not) and believe (or not) in what they went through. As in psychoanalysis, it is
also a matter of negotiation.
In this sense, Ramos’s novels are fundamental texts, in that the Brazilian
writer, as several critics have emphasized, weaves the psychological and the
objective planes. In reading his novels, one sees how phantasms afford social agents
a practical knowledge of the social world, a mental topography that helps us move
within the social world. Ramos’s novels are, in themselves, forms of practical
knowledge, inasmuch as verisimilitude draws literary texts closer to the practices of
our everyday lives. One also sees, in Ramos’s novels, how phantasms are framed by
both social positions and the possibilities, inherent to each position, of deploying
different forms of capital that enable agents to gain credibility for their phantasms
and thereby produce effects on social reality. Psychoanalysis is, in this respect, a
quintessential example, and so is Augusto Roa Bastos’s novel Yo. el supremo.
If I had to summarize Roa Bastos’s novel, I would say that it is the story of
an author, compiling a dictator’s narrative of his own fear of phantasmalization,
which is not only inevitable, but also perfomed in the very text the author compiles.
In this sense, one might think that the compiler is, after all, the one who has the
upper hand, for the narrative ends with a note on how “los personajes y hechos que
figuran en ellos [the compiler’s notes] han ganado, por fatalidad del lenguaje escrito,
el derecho a una existencia ficticia y autonoma al servicio del no menos ficticio y
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307
autonomo lector” (620). To a certain extent, this is true, for history too has its
phantasmatic side. Again, one must bear in mind that the compiler, just like Freud’s
analysands, is talking about a being who no longer exists, a ghost whose only
vestiges of reality the compiler finds in all the texts he gathers. The author’s revenge
(for he says that dictators replace writers, artists, historians, thinkers, and, therefore,
he cannot but become a compiler) is thus to fictionalize, phantasmalize the dictator
and himself. Since this fictionalization is, within the field of Spanish American
literature, a Borgesian trademark, the author thereby regains the authority he had lost
when another dictator (not explicitly named in the text) transformed the compiler
into a migrant.
What the possibility of reclaiming one’s authority through the name of
another author implies is that regaining authority, in this case, occurs within the field
of literary production, where concepts such as the death of the Author have gained
currency. What this also means, however, is that we should take El Supremo’s
assertions about the power of political discourse quite seriously. For if there is a
field of literary production, there is also a political field, with its own sets of rules
and its own potential social powers. That is also what Roa Bastos’s socio-political
phantasmalization tells us. He had to wait until the political field in Paraguay took
its own course, so that he could regain a physical existence among Paraguayans.
And even if he might have been able, through his symbolic struggle with Stroessner,
to maintain a certain social value that, once the dictator was ousted, would be
“the characters and facts that figure in them [the compiler’s notes] have earned, through the fatality
of the written language, the right to a fictitious and autonomous existence in the service of the no less
fictitious and autonomous reader” (435).
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nationally recognized, from the fissure between the literary and the political
fields there emerged new phantasms. At stake in this refraction between fields, as I
pointed out in chapter six, is the possibility of intellectual intervention, and Roa
Bastos’s attempts at forging a national cultural forum, which politicians rejected,
evinces that quite clearly. An answer to how intellectuals will intervene in the social
realm from an autonomous field is yet to be proposed and even Bourdieu’s call for a
collective fight does not quite explain how intellectuals will achieve that
collectivism, given the struggles that constitute the very field of cultural production
(Rules of Art 348).
Bourdieu’s somewhat apocalyptic view of the heteronomous forces
encroaching upon the autonomy of the intellectual field is, in this regard, less
convincing than what one would expect. His use of language — it particularly strikes
me the expression “the prophets of evil” (339) — reminds me of Roa Bastos’s
rhetorical strategies in his symbolic struggles with Stroessner, and I wonder if, in
intentionally writing a normative piece that draws him closer to the public debates
characteristic of journalism, Bourdieu is not already under a different set of rules,
different forces. Could it be then that the rules structuring a field also produce
certain writing styles? That would explain why Roa Bastos’s essays in which he
engages in a political debate with Stroessner are so similar to the dictator’s
discourses in terms of rhetorical strategies. Of course, one could also say that, given
the imprisonment, torture, and assassination of dissidents during Stroessner’s regime,
Roa Bastos could not but write like the dictator, clearly demarcating the distance
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309
between good and evil. “When the enemy is separated from you by a barrier of
fire,” says Sartre, “you have to judge him as a whole, as the incarnation of evil; all
war is a form of Manichaeism” (74); when social powers appear to be as
concentrated as during Stroessner’s dictatorship, “quern nao e por mim, e contra
mim,”* as Mario de Andrade warned a young writer (Cartas 86).
In times of war or dictatorships, the Manichaeism of writers, like Roa Bastos,
might perhaps be less visible, but, precisely because of that, highly effective for
those who have to place themselves on one side of the barrier or the other. In this
sense, Roa Bastos’s political essays also bring to the front the question of ethics in
relation to the effectivity of phantasms, which is implicit in Borges’s “Las ruinas
circulares.” A dreamer listens to his phantasms; he judges them; he searches for the
one who deserves to exist in the real world, to live among the living. Ethics is also
part of the effectivity of Ramos’s concept of phantasmal characters and of the
sincerity and honesty that critics, family members, and the writer himself have
constructed around his authorial figure. In view of high concentrations of economic
capital, critics and writers may give more credit to honesty in depicting social reality,
without which characters, in Ramos’s eyes, are nothing but phantasms. Ethics is,
finally, at the core of the effectivity of some of El Supremo’s political ideas and of
the critics’ difficulties in accounting for the contradictions inherent in the figure of
the dictator.
Critics have often pointed out how El Supremo is a sort of precursor of the
contemporary anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist ideas that would lay some of the
“whoever is not on my side is against me.”
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310
foundations for Latin America’s self-image (see, for example, Bareiro Saguier
[“Historia” 31], Martin [“Yo el sumpremo” 177], and Bergero [1]). Nevertheless,
because of their investment in El Supremo’s ideas, they have also found it difficult to
explain the dictator’s contradictions. For Rama, one should see them as the result of
an incipient revolutionary movement, just like socialist revolutions in twentieth-
century Latin America also had to go through a period of dictatorship (“El dictador
letrado” 399); for Adriana Bergero, the answer to El Supremo’s contradictions lies in
the slippery notion of “el fascinante arte de Roa Bastos” (11).* Whether we find
these answers satisfactory or not, the fact remains that the figure of an Enlightened
Dictator requires an attempt, on the readers’ part, to account for his complexity.
Failure to do so may lead to self-appointed authority, as in the case of El Supremo.
In his political insistence of works rather than words, El Supremo says: “Obras
quiero yo, no palabras, que estas son faciles y la obra dificil, no porque sea dificil
obrar sino porque el mal original de la naturaleza humana lo tuerce y envenena todo,
sin no hay un alma de hierro que vigile, oriente y proteja a la naturaleza y a los
hombres” (474).f Similarly, when El Supremo states that he does not need a
“contrapoder intermediario,” for that only undermines his authority, his rationale is,
in simple terms, “I know better”: “Cuanto mas divida mi poder, mas lo debilitare, y
como solo quiero hacer el bien, no deseo que nada me lo impida; ni siquiera el peor
* “Roa Bastos’s fascinating art.”
1 “I want works, not words, for words come easily while works come hard, not because it is difficult
to accomplish work but because the original evil of human nature twists and poisons everything, so
long as there is not a soul of iron to watch over, guide, and protect nature and man” (330).
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311
de los males” (487).* Bearing in mind El Supremo’s self-appointed authority, I
do not see, as Bergero does, what is the seduction of a political father.
Part of the importance of reconstructing an insincere image of Graciliano
Ramos lies precisely in the complexity we might gain with that image and the
questions one might raise therefrom. What could be, for example, the implications
of attempting to tackle with an insincere author? And what might the proposed co
existence between phantasmal characters and beloved ghosts make us see? One of
the effects of this insincere image is that it hinders an unreflexive investment into the
authoritative Graciliano Ramos and what he represents in terms of attention to social
reality. In this sense, the insincere Graciliano Ramos points to other possible
readings of the effectivity of the concept of phantasmal characters. Following the
distinction he proposes between human and phantasmal characters, one might read it
in relation to the writers who were producing either type of characters. One might,
in other words, read the effectivity of the concept of phantasmal characters in
relation to the contemporary Brazilian literary field and how that effectivity is
dependent upon the interests that different producers have. Obviously, what is also
at stake with the concept of phantasmal characters are the questions of definition,
boundaries, and membership which Bourdieu points out (Rules of Art 223).
Attempting to avoid unreflexive investments does not mean, however, that
we are falling into the same type of distrust that characterizes Marx and Freud and
which is based upon the idea that one occupies a privileged position, the one whence
“The more I divide my power, the more I shall weaken it, and since I wish only to do good, I wish
nothing to stand in my way, not even the worst of evils” (340-41).
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312
one may unmask phantasms. As Ricoeur points out, there is a paradox within the
concept of ideology (8-9), in the sense that, if we are always constructing ideologies
according to our interests, where would that privileged position lie? In this regard,
the fact that Bourdieu’s theory is self-reflexive and relational is as equally important
as the possibility of mapping fields. For it allows us to situate ourselves in relation
to other producers within the field, including unreflexive investors. In situating
ourselves, perhaps what we see is that the effects of certain investments, such as the
credit we may give to concepts like phantasmal characters, occur within specific
fields. If that is correct, then the principal effect of seeing a critical power in literary
works, such as the polyphony or the dialogism of Roa Bastos’s novel, might reside
more in the positions critics may thereby occupy within the field than in the social
transformations that might result from the critique that literary producers propound.
In the case of Graciliano Ramos, his concept of phantasmal characters also
suggests that one could look for its effectivity in relation to agents within different
fields. That is because effects are not only overdetermined (one could therefore
investigate different aspects constituting the effectivity of phantasms), but they are
also situational and relational. Although I focused my readings of Ramos’s
phantasmal characters on literary critics, could not we do the same in relation to
members of the Communist Party? If we could reconstruct the image that these
agents constructed around the author, we might perhaps start gaining some insight
into the effectivity of his concept within the field of politics, in which Ramos did not
occupy a privileged position. For he was not only a cultural producer (and his point
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313
of view is indeed that of a cultural producer), but he also opposed the socialist
realism that communist writers supported. In examining thus the effectivity of
phantasms in relation to other seers besides literary critics, one might also be able to
investigate more closely the possible relations between one type of effectivity and
the other.
When I first read Rubem Fonseca’s “A arte de andar nas ruas do Rio de Janeiro”
[“The Art of Walking in the Streets of Rio de Janeiro”] (1992), I knew, without
knowing why, that the core of the story lay for me in the scene when, as a child, the
protagonist thought he saw through some lenses monsters on the ceiling lamp. But,
the narrator tells us, “[ajfinal descobriu, quando o dia amanhecia, que os bichos eram
as suas pestanas; quando piscava, o monstro aparecia na lente, quando abria os olhos,
o monstro sumia” (18).* What matters, at least to this seer, is neither to close one’s
eyes, nor to open them wide, in our eagerness to see the real. Rather, one should
attempt to find that exact aperture through which, in seeing our eyelashes, we are
reminded that we are engaging in the act of seeing. In this sense, the title of this
dissertation may be a little misleading, for what matters to me is not exactly to see
ghosts, but rather seeing ourselves seeing ghosts.
“He finally discovered, at the break of day, that the animals were his eyelashes, when he blinked the
monster appeared on the lens, when he opened his eyes, the monster disappeared” (translation mine).
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314
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Asset Metadata

Creator Rocha, Fernando de Sousa (author)

Core Title Seeing ghosts: Readings on the effectivity of phantasms

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag comparative literature,Literature, Latin American,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-649484

Unique identifier UC11335129

Identifier 3116777.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-649484 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3116777.pdf

Dmrecord 649484

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rocha, Fernando de Sousa

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA