Gothic Conventions (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

There is a relative consistency of conventions that make the gothic novel recognisable as a distinct genre. The gothic novel is a hybrid manifestation, a link between novel and romance, in which an atmosphere of mystery, thrill and terror pevails. This pre-Romantic, pseudo-medieval type of fiction was intensely produced and avidly consumed from late 18th century to early 19th century. By taking its inspiration from medieval constructions and exploring a darker side of Nature, these novels put in doubt the certainties of Cartesian thought. Investing in a more gloomy disposition to overcome the sentimental/rational discourse, gothic novels presented a literary problem which challenged the project of Enlightment.

In opposition to neoclassical philosophy, these novelists invested in obscure images and symbolic representations such as: disintegrating abbeys where malevolent priests dwell, sinister castles inhabited by tyrannical aristocrats, people moving through secret passages and hiding behind concealed doors, dark forests where bandits stalk, sublime sights of vast wilderness where persecuted heroines fear the worst.

Fantastic literature[1] in its origins can be traced back to the popular and oral tradition, stemming from myths, legends and folklore, these narratives set foot in the 18th century by means of a literature of the irrational and the terror. In its European forms the fantastic novel seems to stem from a French branch, represented by Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable Amoreaux (1772), and an earlier English branch started by Horace Walpole and The Castle of Otranto, a gothick story (1764-5). This last novel is considered to be the founder of the branch we intent to apprehend for discussion. [2]

Semantically the term "gothic" needs some attention, as it meanings will vary depending on the context it is brought up. Initially, the adjective referred simply to the tribes that lived near the Danube and which helped to overthrow the Roman Empire. But at the same time it also meant anything that denoted medieval or post-roman. In that sense, keeping these two ideas in mind, the word “gothic” begun to be constructed in the decades following the Glorious Revolution (1688), coming into being as a controversial category.

It was an attempt by the English to distinguish themselves from a Greco-roman culture, designating an idealised democratic and freedom-loving British heritage, basing these suppositions on a historical registry which could be found in the Gothic architecture.[3] Despite this more positive interpretation, gothic also stood for antiquate, barbarous, feudal, irrational, chaotic, non-civilised. In short, the opposite of “Classical”. These two meanings were object of dispute, signalising conflicting political stands, that only found a clearer formulation much later, summarised in conflicting positions.

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), used the metaphor of a ruined gothic castle in support of the English heritage and monarchy.[4] His point of view was connected to an aristocratic or conservative part of the society. Defending long-standing, ancient relations within the social fabric, he expressed a rejection of the revolutionary upraises in France. On the other hand radicals as Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, defended a gothic associated to a despotic government, arbitrary power and aristocratic hereditary privileges. For them it represented worn out ideals that could no longer exist in the new world that was being formed. This approach was related to the Whig party, the middle class and the row of society who shared a progressive opinion. The political tension and duplicity these ideas raised reflected in literary grounds.

From the aesthetics perspective contesting the supremacy of neo-classic ideals, exploring sensorial aspects of human sensibility that were placed aside by the Enlightment, started to make way for a new “structure of sentiment”, in the expression of Raymond Williams. Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1760), by Richard Hurd, made apology to a re-appropriation of the past defending the rescue of links related to an old British legacy, the ballads, English medieval poetry, Spencer, Shakespeare and the Elizabethans. It was a reaction against the dominant Augustan principles, translated in the literary plan by Essay on Criticism (1711) by Alexander Pope, who defended a poetry based on control, reserve and reason. Also the graveyard poets, a marginal manifestation which took place around the 1740s decade, contested rationalism and the equilibrium upheld by the Illuminists, producing a poetry of defiance and divine inspiration, bringing into play the themes and settings which would become very dear to the gothic novels: death, graves, the night, fear. (Even though these elements were not a breakthrough to British literature and can be traced back to Shakespeare and further back to the popular imaginary)

A third element came to add to those renewed interest for things of the past, and to the admiration of that kind of melancholic poetry. The theory of the sublime traces back to a text frequently (but apparently wrongly) attributed to Longinus. In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), Edmund Burke provided a theory for the gothic machinery drew an aesthetic reading. The treatise which provided the foundation to establish relation between literature and terror, proposing an aesthetics constituted of vastness, obscurity, magnificence, ignoring technical perfection and the organic structure of neoclassic poetry and counteracting with the ideals of balance, harmony and rationality. Burke states that most of the ideas which are capable of making a strong impression on the mind may be reduced nearly to two heads: self-preservation and society. To the ends of one or the other, all our passions are calculated to respond. The passions that regard the preservation of the individual turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of the passions. You could extract pleasure from experiencing a menacing situation from a distance. According to Burke it is possible to extract delight from terror.

These ideas, which were already present in his treatise, became clearer in his later discussion on the revolution. This nostalgia about the past and the lament for the end of the chivalric age constituted indexes of an idealization of a medieval era as an “organic” world in detriment of a modern bourgeoisie society.

As a reaction against the Humanistic beliefs and its narratives of progress, promoting changes by means of rational revolutions, gothic emerges to disturb the calm waters of realism, bringing about the fears that surrounded the upcoming bourgeois society. From the margins of a Enlightment culture, dramatising conflicts and uncertainties in face of a fast-changing social and economical world, gothic became the vehicle to address aesthetics and political questions raised by the 1789 issues in France. The English re-interpreted the ghost of the 1688 revolution through the French Revolution, displacing their anxieties to far countries and past times, making predominantly Italy, but also France and Spain, a scenery of horror stories.

The development of capitalism, in this period of internal realignment and external revolutions, would explain the success of this fiction which questions the constitution of “real”, making way for a blend of fear and attraction, anxiety and desire, which seems to have characterised the relations between bourgeoisie and aristocracy.[5] The gothic novel exposes its ambivalences, the intention of consolidating burgeoise values, like, domesticity, sentiment, virtue, family; side by side with a fascination for medieval architecture, customs and values. Expressing admiration for a feudal world which was at the same time a source of tyranny, barbarism, autocracy, this disapproval was projected in the creation of aristocratic or religious cruel and malevolent villains.

It was Sir Horace Walpole who first gave shape to a regicide narrative, a hybrid between old and modern, novel and romance, bringing about monstrous helmets, invisible hands, labyrinth-like dungeons, ghastly pictures, giant swords and all the paraphernalia which would make the success of the genre.[6] He coined the use of the word in literature by naming his narrative The Castle of Otranto, subtitle: a gothick story. A man of many interests among other things Walpole was a MP, occupation which at that point meant to be implied in the birth of capitalism, a stranger paternity which he seems to have abdicated later in life by retiring into his medieval world to his replica castle Strawberry Hill.

Thinking the gothic as a manifestation affiliated to the Romance tradition (or vice-versa), some system of codes (representation of time and place) and methods of composition (structuring and development) are shared between the two. The key elements of both traditions, which will be developed later, can already be found in Walpole’s five meagre chapters: a story set in past ages (often medieval) and in far away countries (usually Italy, Spain or France), stemming from the translation of a remote document or manuscript, the presence of vast and confined spaces, a narrative which progresses on an endless sequence of amazing circumstances, involving the heroine in breathtaking perils, lots of travelling around the country and the presence of a vicious villain. From this concise story, of simultaneous re-affirmation, in that sense paradoxical of aristocratic and individual values, the gothic romance would emerge as a hybrid form that blends idealised medieval proprieties with late 1800s manners and concerns.

His merit also consists of conscientiously mixing romance and novel, initiating what would be known as gothic fiction, but the story was considered far too incredible by his successors, and for that reason later authors chose to reform his unsophisticated dream-like tale. Clara Reeves’ The Old English Baron (1777) brought the novel back home and invested in a less extravagant, more down-to-earth romantic and melodramatic form. Other writers like Charlotte Smith and Sophia Lee, also pursued a more ‘domestic’ kind of writing, where the represented situations were far more probable and the supernatural circumstances were due to imaginary fears. But they also used heroines set in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, and represented the past in terms of a rational and moral present.

Interest in the Orient and in the depiction of “otherness” became popular in Europe with the translation of Les Mille et une Nuits early in the 1700, followed by Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), Voltaire’s Zadig (1747) and the exotic American adventures Candide (1759). Attracted by the extravagant, stereotyped side of the Orient, William Beckford invested in a luxuriant portray of a despot to create his infernal narrative of the caliph, Vathek (1786), using the same gothic discourse to encode the foreign/aristocrat as corrupt and threatening.

A more established/consolidated gothic fiction came out with the publication of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797). It is generally accepted/considered that Ann Radcliffe’s writings stands for the zenith of a “canonised” gothic production. She certainly represents the heyday of a commercial gothic. “The great enchantress” had a prodigious imagination, she was acquainted with the works of those previous novelists who also developed the cult of suspense, and those who invested in sentimental stories, “persecuted innocence” and character, like Richardson and his infamous Lovelace. She masterfully used the Burkean thesis of sublime to achieve thrilling effects in her works.[7] In short, she kept the fire of gothic burning much more steadily than the candles in her novels, always blown out by a cold draft in a moment of excited apprehension, while sneaking in the damp corridors of haunted abbeys.

Her work influenced a subsequent generation of illustrious writers, namely Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Charles Maturin and Charlotte Brontë. Quite conservative in her views, Radcliffe was not a writer who aimed at questioning the established order, and by the end of her romances she would have conveyed a message of bourgeois moral, naturalistic values and domesticity, according to the 18th century historical understanding. In between her two successful romances Matthew Lewis published The Monk (1796), which dialogued with her “explained supernatural” narrative solutions and as a result helped to consolidate the “core” of genre. Mathews trend of gothic fiction was based on the German type of novel, Schauerroman (horror-romance), introducing blunt terror and heavy handed violence to contrast with the subtle thrills of the Radcliffean mode. Still in the heat of the moment the Marquis de Sade, wrote his famous preface Les Ideés sur les Romans (1800), stating his preference for Lewis’ work and marking the tradition of linking the gothic romance to the French revolution.[8]

Jane Austin’s Northanger Abbey (1818) operates within the limits set by Radcliffe’s stories, parodying and exposing her structures. She satirizes the absurd fantasies of gothic romances and its taste for a imaginary universe in detriment of a realistic perspective. On the other hand, the book insinuates the contagious force of fiction in real life, manifested in the vicissitudes of Catherine Morland who surrounds herself with the, sceneries, moods, symbols, plots and all the conventions that make the gothic novel recognisable as such. Charles Maturin’s Melmoth, the wanderer (1820) is considered to be the last breath of this gothic era. Further landmarks of this “Gothic body” are Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897) which exploited a more scientific and modern fear, involving the new gadgets and technology, like telegraphs and typewriters.

The decade of l790s was the gothic novel’s peak, it had become a vogue and an obsession among admires who could not seem to read enough of this genre. It had also developed into a very profitable business for booksellers and professional writers, who were kept constantly busy trying to meet the public demand and providing for the circulating libraries. This frenzy for gothic fiction occasioned an enormous production, most of it directed to boost sales with very little preoccupation for literary innovation. The popularity of Ann Radcliffe’s novels was attested by the many imitators of her work, who would change a few words in the title and come out with pearls like: The mysteries of the forest, the Monk of Udolpho, Italian Mysteries, or even pseudonyms as little original as Mary Ann Radcliffe.

The gothic novel was the space to discuss political questions, though, placing these anxieties in other countries and time. It embraced the liberal values of sentimentalism, virtue and family mingled with an aristocratic past; however, marked by refutation of tyranny, mishandling of power. In that sense, Gothic can be read as a reaction against industrialization and scientific revolution. However short lived, circumscribed by the temporal boundaries 1764-1820, the gothic phenomenon delineated a response to a mutating society in a specific period of time. In trying to conciliate these social disputes, the genre adopted the figure of a chivalric hero, a romantic knight who behaved according to the bourgeoisie values. His antagonist was the gothic villain, the embodiment of evil itself, representing the dark side of nobility and of the religious institutions. Many reasons are appointed for the decline of the genre as such, including misevaluation on the narrative’s complexity, making plots too intricate and confusing, along with an overexploitation of the genre by the increasing culture of consumerism.

[1] Tzvetan Todorov says that “fantastic” relates to a literary genre that raises ambiguities between reality and dream, that is, proposing a insoluble doubt in the nature of the events narrated, allowing both a rational explanation, or another one which presupposes the existence of the supernatural: “Le fantastique mène donc une vie pleine de dangers, et peut s’évanouir à tout instant”.

[2] The French story, Le Diable Amoreux, will inspire Hoffman, Nerval, the onirical fantastic writers, from Nodier to Kafka. While from The Castle of Otranto will derive the literature of Ann Radcliffe, Charles Maturin, Bram Stoker, the gothic literature in the 19th century, as well as detectives stories and contemporary thrillers.

[3] The structural innovation promoted by gothic buildings constituted a technical advancement in relation to the Romanic form, bringing and end to dim churches. Liberating the wall for the penetration of light, high and sharp towers, broken arches are some of its distinctive features. This new conception, later denominated gothic, is attributed to the French abbot Suger (1081-1151), a Benedict monk from the church of St. Denis near Paris, who was searching for epiphany, or sublime elevation by painting coloured glasses and coloured afrescos.

[4] He believed that French monarchy was one of the best in Europe and its mistake was not to make concessions to the uprising bourgeoisie.

[5] Stefan Andriopoulos associates Adam‘s Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) to the gothic novel using the invisible hand as metaphor of intervening power. See: ANDRIOPOULOS, S. “The Invisible Hand: Supernatural Agency in Political Economy and the Gothic Novel,” ELH 66 (1999): 739-58. IN: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/subjectguides/pol/classes/poli033356.htm

[6] Victor Sage points to a discrepancy in The Castle of Otranto between the highly emotional subject matter and the dry, rational language employed by the narrative voice. SAGE, V. “The Gothic Novel”. IN: MULVEY-ROBERTS, Marie (ed.). The Handbook to Gothic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1998. (p.82)

[7] She delighted in descriptions of scenery, usually drawn entirely from her inner consciousness but many painters receive mention in the novels of Ann Radcliffe. One of her references was Salvator Rosa, a 17th century Italian landscape painter, who created dramatic landscapes peopled with peasants and banditti. Like Ann Radcliffe, he intended to create a feeling of awe and sublime in the minds of his audience. The landscapes of another Italian artist, Giambattista Piranesi, also influenced many English Gothic writers, especially with his powerful black and white figurative engravings of Roman ruins, spectacular landscapes where banditti would lurk in ambush and his Carcieri fascinated the English mind.

[8] Sade preferred the philosophical debate to the aesthetics creation. From the point of view of debating with Illuminist, questioning the existence of God and the morals of sentiment, Radcliff’s naturalistic stories worked mere cautionary tales.

A Natureza em O Guarani: a casa interpreta a floresta (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

A abordagem alencariana em relação à Natureza segue uma tradição tornada popular no Brasil pelos viajantes alemães Spix and Martius, no século XVIII, que entendiam a Natureza como fonte de emoções. Uma geração antes de Alencar, os críticos franceses Ferdinand Denis, Théodore Taunay and Édouard Corbière trouxeram ao país as idéias de Montaigne, Rousseau e Chateaubriand sobre a relevância dos povos autóctones.[1] Nesse sentido, O Guarani não produz inovações filosóficas, sendo uma variante do modelo estabelecido pelo bon sauvage.

Concentrado na tarefa de exaltar os elementos naturais, o autor freqüentemente investe em narrações que envolvem grandes ângulos descritivos, fazendo desse tipo de abordagem um estilo. A cena na abertura do romance é introduzida por meio de uma perspectiva “elevada”, como quem vê a cena de cima e em seguida desce, acompanhando a trajetória do rio da foz à nascente, em seu salto para o passado. A imagem da montanha também aparece na passagem, sendo usada por Alencar para reforçar a idéia de “amplidão”. O planalto sobre o qual se situa a casa não é escolhido por acaso. Do ponto de vista autoral, a visão a partir do solar, “lançando um olhar sobranceiro pelos vastos horizontes que se abriam em torno” (p.58), permite avaliar a beleza natural da cena de um ponto de vista privilegiado. Tal abordagem almeja falar sobre liberdade e independência. A idéia combina com os ideais românticos do século XIX, nos quais se entendia que ao tecer louvores à terra nativa se abrangeria a grandeza da nação. Visto que o mérito de um povo dependia da competência do artista em reafirmar as “cores locais”, se tornava necessário imbuir das mais arrebatadoras imagens ao se descrever a Natureza. Buscando um estilo que pudesse dar vazão às suas aspirações épicas, Alencar investiu no discurso do “sublime” e em figuras de linguagem, especialmente hipérboles, com intuito de magnificar os elementos naturais. Nesse aspecto em específico, sua linguagem poética se aproxima daquela de Ann Radcliffe. A fim de expressar suas capacidades estilísticas, Alencar emprega técnicas que aprendeu nas suas leituras dos romances góticos.[2] Ele produz uma narrativa que alterna conflito e relaxamento, revezando entre sensações e efeitos, visando à excitação do leitor. Os nomes e temas dos capítulos (Vilania/Nobreza, Desânimo/Esperança, Trégua/Peleja, etc.) demonstram esse uso de tensões para criar clímax, contrastando o sublime e o pitoresco na Natureza, propondo ocorrências sobrenaturais e as explicando em seguida. Ainda, como reminiscência de um gótico radcliffeano, uma função recorrente da Natureza em O Guarani são as cenas que antecipam ações futuras. A passagem abaixo descreve uma tempestade torrencial que preconiza a transformação do frei Angelo di Lucca no seu alter-ego Loredano.

Estava quase a anoitecer.
Uma tempestade seca, terrível e medonha, como as há freqüentemente nas fraldas da serrania, desabava sobre a terra. O vento mugindo açoitava as grossas árvores que vergavam os troncos seculares; o trovão ribombava no bojo das grossas nuvens desgarradas pelo céu; o relâmpago amiudava com tanta velocidade, que as florestas, os montes, toda a natureza nadava num oceano de fogo. [...] apoiado sobre a outra coluna, estava um frade carmelita, que acompanhava com um sorriso de satisfação íntima o progresso da borrasca; animava-lhe o rosto belo e de traços acentuados um raio de inteligência e uma expressão de energia que revelava o seu caráter.
Ao ver esse homem sorrindo à tempestade e afrontando com o olhar a luz do relâmpago, conhecia-se que sua alma tinha a força de resolução e a vontade indomável capaz de querer o impossível. E de lutar contra o céu e a terra para obtê-lo. (O Guarani, parte II, capítulo I, p. 174)

Apesar de estar comprometido com o projeto de criação de uma literatura nacional, naquele momento, as idéias de Alencar ainda parecem muito influenciadas pelos modelos europeus. Porque a Natureza personificava o elemento de diferenciação nacional na literatura, entendia-se que ela deveria aparecer no romance cheia de significações e simbologias. Soma-se a isso o fato de que as riquezas da paisagem tropical ofereceriam o ambiente ideal para a manifestação desse espírito. Entretanto, apesar do vigor, da exuberância e da sensualidade manifesta na representação da natureza tropical, aspectos acertadamente comentados por Gilberto Freyre[3], Alencar não sucede em criar uma descrição completamente inovadora. Sua floresta é povoada por animais “fantásticos” e plantas “exóticas”. A Natureza no Guarani é observada da perspectiva de quem vê o país de fora. A vista do solar, situado no ponto mais elevado da região, pode sugerir a beleza da amplitude, propondo uma integração entre o civilizado e o natural. Entretanto, o que realmente se estabelece é uma relação hierárquica indicada pela diferença de altura entre as partes. A posição elevada da casa ofusca a Natureza à sua volta, e a associação íntima entre homem e Natureza não resiste a um exame mais severo, explico-me abaixo. Observando a cena por outro ângulo, a escada “feita metade pela natureza e metade pela arte” (p. 52) é utilizada para confirmar a capacidade do colonizador em transformar a paisagem. A proposta de comunhão no interior da casa é novamente decepcionante. Enquanto os objetos da metrópole são apresentados como finos, seja pela procedência artística ou por seu caráter de manufaturado, os produtos nativos são apenas matéria-prima, tratados como uma “coleção de curiosidades [...] de cores mimosas e formas esquisitas” (p. 55). Não obstante, esse tipo de linguagem exótica seria aceitável dentro da casa, que é o espaço do colonizador por definição. O problema começa quando a linguagem se espalha para a Natureza em volta.

A floresta abaixo da casa é descrita como “cúpula de verdura” (p. 66) ou “arcarias de verdura e dos capitéis formados pelos leques das palmeiras” (p. 51) e “profundas e sombrias abóbadas de verdura [...] ao qual serviam de colunas os troncos seculares de acaris e araribás” (p. 66). As árvores invocam características de estruturas arquitetônicas, aquelas encontradas primordialmente em castelos e igrejas. O planalto sobre o qual a casa se situa é comparado a um “altar da natureza” (p.58). Outras referências introduzem as construções e convicções religiosas no ambiente da floresta “a luz, coando entre a espessa folhagem, se descompunha inteiramente; nem uma réstia de sol penetrava nesse templo da criação” (p. 66). Os rios também assumem referências feudais, sendo chamados de “vassalo e tributário” (p. 51). Nas escolhas lexicais, a Natureza se torna portadora de ideologias, descrevendo aquilo que é nativo nos termos do civilizado. Evidencia-se um ecossistema modificado, no qual a casa se torna a voz definidora da paisagem, interpretando e classificando a floresta de acordo com os seus padrões. Nesse sentido, a casa lê a floresta, apresentando-a como fonte de matéria-prima, e reservando para si o papel de agente transformador, hierarquicamente acima numa escala de valores.

Poderia haver uma má interpretação do projeto que Alencar estabeleceu para si próprio? Não, creio que o quadro é mais complexo do que isso. Ao deslocar tal repertório de termos discursivos para dentro da paisagem brasileira, o autor não pretende se submeter à matriz européia (tampouco pretende esconder suas influências). Ao contrário, as referências textuais constituem um estratagema para citar a tradição estrangeira. Sua manipulação desses elementos é consciente, até certo ponto. Alencar parece dizer: se eles (europeus) têm castelos, nós (brasileiros) temos árvores fortes e ancestrais, se eles possuem templos, nosso santuário é a floresta, se eles têm cavaleiros em armaduras brilhantes, temos índios habilidosos adornados com lindas penas. Seu pensar é consistente e perfeitamente lógico com a tradição rousseauniana, a qual coloca a Natureza acima da sociedade. Entretanto, a comparação é ingênua na maneira como utiliza a medida estrangeira. Ao invés de mensurar o valor nativo contra os castelos e abadias, Alencar poderia ter perseguido uma ruptura estética mais significativa. Talvez, o que falta na fatura do romance seria a invenção de um modelo verdadeiramente original, ao invés de criar um romance brasileiro com os elementos da herança cultural européia.

Limitado por seu tempo histórico e pela sociedade em que viveu, poderia Alencar ter feito isso? Em caso afirmativo, teria sacrificado a consolidação do Guarani, o qual é parte de um projeto mais amplo para o romance brasileiro, que é posteriormente explicado no prefácio A Benção Paterna (1872), em detrimento de um experimentalismo ficcional sem utilidade. Se a Inglaterra já havia estabelecido uma identidade nacional confortável para si, no Brasil a época ainda era a de construir mitos nacionais. Alguns dos parâmetros de nacionalidade criados por Alencar, sejam temáticos, como a questão indígena e a mestiçagem, ou formais, como a questão da inovação pela linguagem, foram retomados e redefinidos, por exemplo, em Macunaíma (1928) de Mario de Andrade. Não esgotado pelos modernistas, o debate sobre a identidade brasileira perdura até hoje. O que pode se afirmar sobre Alencar aqui, é que a sua compreensão da nacionalidade, a qual funcionava a partir da dicotomia simplista e romântica nacional/estrangeiro, levou-o a ponto de destruir a casa portuguesa, representando o imperialismo, e com isso, quem sabe estivesse antecipando a possibilidade da república. Não obstante, O Guarani promove avanços sem precedentes, seja no Brasil ou na Europa, mostrando como Alencar estava à frente do seu tempo. Ele introduz o conceito de uma nação multicultural através da celebração da mistura de etnias (ainda que não sem contradições), que é uma característica essencial da sociedade brasileira e, fazendo isso, rejeita a demonização gótica das suas imagens centrais, como veremos a seguir.

[1] Antonio Candido. A Formação da Literatura Brasileira (Momentos Decisivos). 7a. edição. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1993 (pp. 260-3).

[2] A pesquisa de Sandra Vasconcelos sobre os romances ingleses que circularam no Brasil no século XIX fornece uma longa lista de autores góticos, inclusive Beckford, Godwin, Lewis (e a sua tradução de Zschokke) e Radcliffe. IN: Sandra G. T. Vasconcelos. Romances Ingleses em Circulação no Brasil durante o séc. XIX. Site da UNICAMP. http://www.unicamp.br/iel/memoria/Ensaios/Sandra/sandralev.htm

[3] Gilberto Freyre. Reinterpretando José de Alencar. MEC, Cadernos de Cultura, s.d.

Loredano: um vilão gótico nos trópicos (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

Loredano estava suspenso sobre o abismo pela sua mão; poderia salvá-lo ou precipitá-lo no despenhadeiro; e contudo dessa posição ainda ele impunha respeito ao aventureiro.
Rui tinha medo: não compreendia o motivo desse terror irresistível; mas o sentia como uma obsessão e um pesadelo.
No entanto a imagem da riqueza esplêndida, brilhante, radiando galas e luzimentos, passava diante dos seus olhos e o deslumbrava; um pouco de coragem e seria o único senhor do tesouro fabuloso, cujo era o italiano depositário do segredo.
Mas coragem é o que lhe faltava; por duas ou três vezes o aventureiro teve um ímpeto de suspender-se ao frechal e deixar a tábua rolar no abismo; não passou de um desejo.
Venceu afinal a tentação.
Teve um momento de desvario: os joelhos acurvaram-se; a tábua sofreu uma oscilação tão forte, que Rui admirou-se de como o italiano tinha podido suster.
Então o medo desapareceu; foi substituído por uma espécie de raiva e frenesi que se apoderou do aventureiro; o primeiro esforço lhe dera a ousadia, como a vista do sangue excita a fera.
Um segundo abalo mais forte agitou a tábua, que oscilou à borda do rochedo; porém não se ouviu o baque de um corpo; não se ouviu mais que o choque da madeira sobre a pedra. Rui, desesperado, ia soltar a prancha, quando chegou-lhe ao ouvido, abafada e sumida, a voz do italiano, que se percebia no silêncio profundo da noite.
- Estais cansado, Rui?... podeis tirar a tábua; não preciso mais dela.
O aventureiro ficou espavorido; decididamente esse homem era um espírito infernal que planava sobre o abismo e escarnecia do perigo; um ente superior a quem a morte não podia tocar.
(O Guarani, parte III, capítulo III, p. 312-3)


Apesar das tentativas de Rui de fazê-lo cair, Loredano caminha sobre o abismo, sugerindo o domínio de poderes infernais. Seu feito não apenas desafia as leis da probabilidade, mas reclama controle sobre o abismo, o símbolo da destruição. Esse instante, que se coloca além da compreensão, é um momento gótico. Esta cena fantasmagórica não vem sem aviso, ela representa o auge de uma série de pequenos indícios, que vem sendo construída desde o início do romance, em relação à malevolência do vilão. Loredano é chamado de condottiere, “aventureiro de baixa extração” (p.113), ele fala com “um ligeiro acento italiano, e um meio sorriso cuja expressão de ironia era disfarçada por uma benevolência suspeita” (p. 64). Alencar parece apostar no estereótipo do vilão italiano à moda inglesa. Apesar de Loredano ser eloqüente e articulado, sua condição de estrangeiro é salientada pelo sotaque. Loredano é duas vezes forasteiro, por ser o vilão e por não ser português ou índio. Sua aparência é descrita da seguinte maneira:

Um rosto moreno, coberto por uma longa barba negra, entre a qual o sorriso desdenhoso fazia brilhar a alvura de seus dentes; olhos vivos, a fronte larga, descoberta pelo chapéu desabado que caía sobre o ombro; alta estatura, e uma constituição forte, ágil e musculosa, eram os principais traços deste aventureiro.(O Guarani, parte I, capítulo I, p. 66)
Visando acumular o máximo de tensão para as cenas de clímax, a maldade do vilão é apresentada num crescimento gradual. Ao longo do romance, Loredano sofre um processo de “bestialização”, que se inicia pela visão e olfato; os aspectos sensoriais começam a suplantar a racionalidade, “um olhar ardente, duro, incisivo; enquanto as narinas dilatadas aspiravam o ar com a delícia da fera que fareja a vítima” (p. 95). A transformação de homem em fera se torna mais freqüente, as definições cada vez mais precisas. Em outro momento, diz-se que “sua pupila fulva brilhou na treva, como os olhos da irara” (p.116), comparado aqui a uma onça. Ele também é chamado de “inimigo talvez mais terrível que os Aimorés, porque, se estes eram feras, aquele podia ser a serpente escondida entre as folhas e a relva” (p.159).[1]

À medida que o romance se desenvolve, e o plano de Loredano vai sendo revelado, a traição de Loredano ganha contornos de inimaginável blasfêmia. Sua luxúria por Ceci é tão incontrolável a ponto de ele dizer: “ainda cadáver, o contato desta mulher deve ser para mim um gozo imenso” (p.311). Com a introdução de aspectos hediondos, como a necrofilia, Loredano começa a transcender a condição de fera para atingir o patamar do diabólico, e ao andar sobre o abismo Loredano torna-se o próprio diabo. O narrador conclui que “decididamente esse homem era um espírito infernal que planava sobre o abismo e escarnecia do perigo; um ente superior a quem a morte não podia tocar” (p.313). O controle que ele exerce sobre parte dos aventureiros é anormal, um “terror irresistível, uma obsessão e um pesadelo” (p.312). Apesar do momento de desorientação, não muito depois, o narrador entra novamente para desmistificar a ação com uma solução radcliffeana. O “sobrenatural explicado” entra para elucidar o truque (neste caso de andar sobre o abismo, uma corda de segurança) subordinando o improvável às leis físicas e o fantástico a uma explicação racional dos fatos. É pertinente que, enquanto Alencar se apropria do gótico poético de Radcliffe, baseado na Natureza pitoresca e no sobrenatural explicado, o comportamento ímpio do seu vilão guarda semelhanças com o padre Ambrosio, de Lewis, pois ambos os vilões não conseguem controlar sua luxúria.

Loredano compartilha dessa dimensão “animalesca” com os índios aimorés. Diferentemente da transformação progressiva sofrida pelo vilão, os nativos são desumanizados desde o princípio e não chegam ao patamar do demoníaco. Sua aparência e conduta animalesca indicam antes uma total ausência de costumes civilizados, formando uma “horda selvagem reduzida à brutalidade das feras” (p. 349). Eles são a imagem do país selvagem que Alencar deseja sobrepujar, “filhos das brenhas”, ou seja, das florestas, como são chamados, ainda na infância da raça.

Um prazer feroz animava todas essas fisionomias sinistras, nas quais a braveza, a ignorância e os instintos carniceiros tinham quase de todo apagado o cunho da raça humana.
Os cabelos arruivados caiam-lhe sobre a fronte e ocultavam inteiramente a parte mais nobre do rosto, criada por Deus para a sede da inteligência, e para o trono donde o pensamento deve reinar sobre a matéria.
Os lábios decompostos, arregaçados por uma contração dos músculos faciais, tinham perdido a expressão suave e doce que imprimem o sorriso e a palavra; de lábios de homem se haviam transformado em mandíbulas de fera afeitas ao grito e ao bramido.
Os dentes agudos como a presa do jaguar, já não tinham o esmalte que a natureza lhes dera; armas ao mesmo tempo que instrumento da alimentação, o sangue os tingira da cor amarelenta que têm os dentes dos animais carniceiros.
As grandes unhas negras e retorcidas que cresciam nos dedos, a pele áspera e calosa, faziam de suas mãos, antes garras temíveis, do que a parte destinada a servir ao homem e da nobreza do gesto.
Grandes peles de animais cobriam o corpo agigantado desses filhos das brenhas, que a não ser o porte ereto se julgaria alguma raça de quadrúmanos indígenas do novo mundo.
(O Guarani, parte III, capítulo XIII, p. 387-8)


Estilisticamente, os adjetivos tornam-se macabros, porém não menos poéticos, se compreendidos dentro de uma estética do terror. A descrição dos indígenas carrega implicações ideológicas amparadas por um discurso do horror, o qual desempenha uma função importante nessa sensibilidade, pois alimentam a ojeriza aos aspectos destacados. Aqui, Alencar emprega estratégias que conectam corpo e deformação à imagem dos aimorés; seu objetivo estético seria gerar tensões e contrastes que se oponham à beleza indígena representada por Peri, ou a beleza angelical de Ceci. Além disso, subjaz um discurso que se funda no indeferimento, no repúdio do barbarismo, que ocuparia uma posição inferior na escala de valores que Alencar está construindo. Tradicionalmente, essas técnicas narrativas, que associam carne e dor, foram um recurso largamente utilizado pelos romancistas góticos e se encontram na essência do conceito de sublime imaginado por Burke.

Passado o primeiro espanto, os selvagens bramindo atiraram-se todos como uma só mole, como uma tromba do oceano, contra o índio que ousava atacá-los a peito descoberto.
Houve uma confusão, um trabalho horrível de homens que se repeliam, tombavam e se estorciam; de cabeças que se levantavam e outras que desapareciam; de braços e dorsos que se agitavam e se contraíam, como se tudo isso fosse partes de um só corpo, membros de algum monstro desconhecido debatendo-se em convulsões.
(O Guarani, parte III, capítulo XIII, p. 392)

O monstro gargantuesco acima se refere à dicotomia entre civilização e barbárie. A idéia de Alencar, e sua utilização de um discurso de horror no retrato dos aimorés, comprova uma preferência pelos hábitos racionais europeus ao invés do instinto rudimentar do nativo. Mas não é isso que ele pensa de todos os indígenas, a discussão de valores é habilmente deslocada na figura do herói Peri que, apesar de ser índio, incorpora os valores civilizatórios.

A disposição de Alencar tende a projetar o modelo racionalista europeu como exemplo preferencial. A impressão que se obtém da leitura faz acreditar que o modelo defendido estaria além de questões étnicas ou culturais, impondo-se como padrão universal. Seu desejo é reproduzir nos trópicos o mesmo trato social da Europa, apresentando a civilidade dos costumes como a única conduta possível para homens de bem. Trabalhando com dicotomias, tudo que é considerado positivo no romance deve alinhar-se com o eixo da civilização. Justamente em Peri encontramos seu maior poder de persuasão; o índio seria o grande exemplo da sua proposta. Idealmente, Peri é a síntese de dois mundos, incorporando a nobreza refinada do europeu com o conhecimento empírico dos nativos. A fusão desses elementos pretende constituir a experiência de uma sociedade tropical cuidadosamente elaborada. Entretanto, dificilmente se pode reconhecer nele um personagem indígena, pois seu comportamento se assemelha mais aos códigos de honra seguidos por um cavaleiro medieval. Ele é até chamado de “um cavalheiro português no corpo de um selvagem” (p.102). Peri é um “amigo” enquanto ele adotar esses códigos, a valorização do personagem enquanto índio está condicionada à sua aceitação, ou alinhamento, com os costumes europeus, somente assim ele pode pertencer à nova ordem social que será instaurada. O clímax da sua derrota cultural acontece ao adotar o cristianismo; receber o sobrenome de Mariz é sua aceitação final das crenças do colonizador. Do lado oposto está Loredano, etnicamente alinhado com os europeus, mas que se move para a dimensão pagã e incivilizada dos aimorés, portando uma “fúria de Satanás precipitado no abismo” (p. 189).

Responsável por sabotar o projeto português de colonização, Loredano rebela-se contra a configuração da Casa de Mariz. Ganância, ambição e falta de mobilidade social parecem desencadear o descontentamento. Sendo o portador do mapa do tesouro, ele entende que não tem que se submeter às regras aristocráticas, mas seu amor por Cecília é a sua desdita. Sendo que os aimorés representam a brutalidade incivilizada, o autor descarta o vilão, descontente e apaixonado, como um elemento inadequado ao seu projeto de nação devido a sua cobiça e luxúria.

Loredano parece ser o único personagem capaz de promover mudanças no seu destino, em um romance onde a maioria dos personagens são "planificados", representantes de um papel social, e incapazes de comunicarem suas individualidades. Nesse sentido, seus processos psicológicos são inexpressivos, a exploração subjetiva da alma não se aprofunda e os personagens não se tornam “humanizados”, permanecendo no nível caricatural. Até certo ponto, a personalidade de Loredano parece conter um certo grau de antagonismo. Este seria representado pela oposição entre uma vida de pureza e de pecado, sendo a discórdia entre o espírito e o corpo um drama psicológico dentro do contraditório complexo que é a alma humana.

Quanto aos elementos da composição do personagem, alguns aspectos ligam o perfil de Loredano àquelas convenções estabelecidas pelos primeiros vilões góticos: a compleição física morena, os olhos ameaçadores, o passado obscuro, a origem italiana, a dupla identidade, inclinações violentas e a ganância excessiva. Alencar parece usar o vilão popularizado no romance gótico tradicional para insuflar sentimentos de estranhamento e alteridade entre os leitores brasileiros. Assim como os romancistas ingleses, Alencar estaria com isso levantando questões de nacionalidade. Entretanto, se o conceito de estrangeiro era facilmente reconhecível, propondo uma questão de patriotismo sob a qual todos poderiam se engajar, o projeto necessita de uma aclimatação para fazer sentido na realidade brasileira. Enquanto o modelo gótico tradicional incorporava o assunto de uma identidade nacional britânica, falando em nome de uma nação protestante, democrática, civilizada e tradicional, o mesmo não poderia simplesmente ser transferido para o Brasil.

Apesar de absorver algumas das convenções e dos elementos góticos, O Guarani diverge da fórmula inglesa particularmente ao não deslocar os assuntos nacionais para fora do país. Todo o conflito é situado dentro do Brasil. A condição de estrangeiro de Loredano é destacada no seu sotaque e no seu jargão usual, a exemplo de “per Dio” ou “per Bacco”. Enquanto todos os europeus na casa possuem nomes portugueses, o vilão pode ser notado por seu nome incomum.

A nova identidade assumida por ele parece ser uma referência a um célebre doge de Veneza, cuja riqueza e poder o vilão almeja igualar (ver p. 169). Todavia, diferentemente de muitos vilões góticos, Loredano não é nobre, detalhe que constitui uma distinção importante entre as formas britânicas e a brasileira. O passado do antagonista é parcialmente revelado num capítulo cheio de chuvas torrenciais e relâmpagos. Essa história é uma subnarrativa da história principal, muito parecida com a história de Spalatro e do Barone di Cambrusca em The Italian.[2] A interpolação (metanarrativa) aqui segue uma estrutura labiríntica de enredo, característica de muitos romances góticos. Essas são histórias que resistem a serem contadas e, em última instância, escondem mais do que revelam intenções. Loredano é filho de pescadores em Veneza, que entra na ordem dos Capuchinhos talvez para escapar da mesma sina do pai. Ele procura uma posição social melhor ingressando no seminário. Angelo di Lucca vem ao Brasil para trabalhar como missionário na conversão de indígenas. Suas possíveis privações econômicas enquanto criança tornaram-se privações psicológicas, efeito colateral do aprisionamento monástico, no qual sua sexualidade foi reprimida. Isto é revelado no dia em que ele descobre o mapa das minas de prata e abandona o hábito por uma vida de aventuras. Seu delírio gótico expõe seus anseios de fortuna e de prazer.


Diante de seus olhos, a imaginação exaltada lhe apresentava um mar argênteo, um oceano de metal fundido, alvo e resplandecente, que ia se perder no infinito. As vagas desse mar de prata ora achamalotavam-se, ora rolavam formando frocos de espumas, que pareciam flores de diamantes, de esmeraldas e rubins cintilando à luz do sol.
Às vezes também nessa face lisa e polida desenhavam-se como em um espelho palácios encantados, mulheres belas como as huris do profeta, virgens graciosas como os anjos de Nossa Senhora do Monte Carmelo.
(O Guarani, parte II, capítulo I, p. 180)
O frei regressa do desvario renascido como Loredano (l'ore dano, o minério nocivo?), e ele agora perseguirá o quinhão de mulher e de riqueza que o mundo lhe deve. Seu ressentimento social emerge diante da possibilidade de enriquecimento, e a bela Cecília torna-se depositária do seu desejo de amar. Pobreza, ambição excessiva e abstinência sexual constituem a fórmula alencariana do vilão.

A origem humilde de Loredano distingue-o dos seus potenciais modelos góticos, Ambrosio e Schedoni. Enquanto a maioria dos vilões góticos, em algum momento das suas histórias, foi rica ou desfrutou de algum prestígio, a ambição de Loredano emerge após uma vida de privações, e isso apontaria para o que ele representa nesse contexto. Nesse sentido, o vilão ganha personalidade própria. Adiante, mais diferenças separam Loredano de seus pares britânicos. Enquanto as súbitas revisões de consciência e changes of heart tomam de assalto os vilões ingleses, introduzindo confissões públicas, arrependimentos de última hora, a fim de dar um tom moralizante ao romance, Loredano permanece impassível em seus últimos momentos.


Antes de obedecerem à ordem de D. Antônio de Mariz, eles tinham executado a sua sentença proferida contra Loredano; e quem passasse sobre a esplanada veria em torno do poste, em que estava atado o frade, uma língua vermelha que lambia fogueira, enroscando-se pelos toros de lenha.
O italiano já sentia o fogo que se aproximava e a fumaça, que, enovelando-se, envolvia-o numa névoa espessa, é impossível descrever a raiva, a cólera, e o furor que se apossaram dele nesses momentos que precederam o suplício.
(O Guarani, parte IV, capítulo IX, p. 464)

Diante da morte não há arrependimentos declarados que sirvam para moralizar os momentos finais de Loredano; todavia, sua punição é exemplar para todos aqueles que ousem divergir da boa conduta e da religião cristã. Queimado na fogueira como um herege medieval (para ser purificado pelo fogo), o ex-frei não apela para a misericórdia dos homens, suplica aos Céus ou arrepende-se intimamente. Seus últimos momentos são silenciosos, frustrados e enraivecidos por um sonho de opulência e amor que não chega a se materializar. O Santo Ofício, a Santa Inquisição e a queima de hereges em praça pública foram assuntos principais para os romancistas ingleses que escreveram durante o auge do gótico, e o tema é usado aqui por Alencar.[3] O tribunal eclesiástico instituído pela Igreja Católica adotava esse procedimento, conhecido como Auto da Fé, ou seja, um ato de fé, como uma interpretação do princípio Ecclesia non novit sanguinem (A igreja não está manchada com sangue). Como no modelo britânico, Alencar não deixa o Mal sem punição, entretanto não força acomodações finais, ou as reconciliações forçosas que eram comuns na ficção inglesa. Essas diferenças na origem, nas motivações e na morte do vilão alencariano parecem apontar para quem ele seria. Ao assimilar alguns traços do modelo gótico, Alencar não reproduz a mesma ideologia protestante de que fala Victor Sage. Ele parece apoiar, acima de tudo, valores civilizatórios, como o racionalismo e a honra, em detrimento do primitivismo, brutalidade e traição. Além disso, o romance propõe princípios de domesticidade, família e cristandade, enquanto descarta a licenciosidade, a ganância e a impiedade.

Após exorcizar a casa portuguesa, os selvagens aimorés e o vilão italiano, Alencar parece indicar que velhos ideais aristocráticos assim como, o primitivismo e estrangeiros ambiciosos à procura de riquezas já não eram bem-vindos na sociedade brasileira de 1857. O fundo político do gótico torna-o a linguagem mais apropriada para tratar do assunto, pois fornece um discurso para esse tipo de exorcismo. Não obstante, Loredano difere dos seus pares britânicos, pois não representa mais o medo de uma revolução passada e distante, mas a resposta única de Alencar para as ansiedades brasileiras. O vilão gótico alencariano e as imagens góticas que ele cria representam uma contestação do tempo e a sociedade em que viveu. Sua resposta cultural, imbricada com discussões imperialistas e de soberania nacional, faz sentido na medida em que a sociedade brasileira ia abrindo espaço para pensamentos pré-republicanos, os quais o próprio Alencar ajudou a fomentar, ainda que ele não venha a ver a República. Em sintonia com o seu tempo, Alencar viu as possibilidades do país, que não desejava mais suportar o anacrônico modelo colonial e a exploração estrangeira. Loredano é o símbolo desse descontentamento, que é exorcizado pelo discurso gótico junto com as pessoas que viam o Brasil como um lugar de empreendimentos descomprometidos e de fácil rentabilidade. “Hei de ser rico e poderoso, contra a vontade do mundo inteiro!” (p. 181), diz Loredano demonstrando sua ética e revelando o que veio fazer.

É costumeiro representar o colonialista como um homem rico, geralmente bem arrumado, ou enxugando o suor com um lenço. Se britânico, ele poderá vestir algo na cor bege, um chapéu de caça e um monóculo, e talvez até beber chá servido em porcelana branca. Até mesmo entre uma boa parte da chamada crítica pós-colonial, essa representação do colono rico parece ser comumente empregada, perpetuando uma idéia que não é de todo correta. É obvio que alguns colonialistas eram muito ricos e sofisticados, e se tornaram ainda mais ricos com o comércio, enquanto outros perderam tudo na sua aposta por riquezas. Não obstante, um número significativo desses homens veio de condições pobres. Nos portos de Liverpool, por exemplo, eles eram recrutados pelas companhias de comércio e navegação, para se tornarem capatazes no exterior, baseados exatamente nesse critério de pobreza. A companhia sabia que suas origens humildes iriam constituir um ímpeto de ambição, e que eles iriam aproveitar ao máximo a oportunidade. Então, uma vez endinheirados, eles iriam imitar os hábitos e costumes das classes ricas. Eu entendo Loredano como esse tipo de aventureiro desfavorecido, aspirando construir uma fortuna. Nascido em uma família de poucos bens, ele está preparado para investir tudo na possibilidade de tornar-se rico, mesmo que isso signifique apelar para violência, seqüestro e assassinato. Na verdade, Loredano poderia ter saído da Casa de Mariz a qualquer momento, e conquistado a fortuna com seu mapa das minas de prata. Mas sendo o vilão de um romance romântico, seu reclame maior é amor. “Unicamente vos aviso que aquele que tocar a soleira da porta da filha de D. Antônio de Mariz é um homem morto; essa é a minha parte na presa! É a parte do leão.” (p. 169).

[1] Ao discorrer sobre o terror no seu tratado sobre o Sublime, Burke diz que muitos animais são capazes de invocar idéias de transcendência. IN: Edmund Burke. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas about the Sublime and the Beautiful. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958 (p. 57).

[2] Ver Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, pp. 131-255.

[3] Como Loredano, Ambrosio também seria queimado vivo, mas ele escapa do julgamento vendendo sua alma ao Diabo. IN: Matthew Lewis, The Monk, pp. 298-300. Charles Maturin também aborda a questão da queima de hereges em praça pública como fonte de horror no gótico inglês. IN: Charles Maturin. Melmoth, the wanderer, 2000.

O Gótico: nas fissuras da razão (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

O gótico habita as fissuras da Razão. Um momento de assombro, um segundo de desorientação que nos transporta para além das fronteiras do conhecimento. Textualmente, o gótico se apresenta como um efeito retórico que desafia a segurança epistemológica do leitor. A ordem pode ser imediatamente restabelecida, por meio de explicação autoral, trazendo os leitores de volta à lucidez e fazendo aquele instante de deslumbramento recolher-se à sua rachadura. Mas o gótico persiste, como uma semente de incerteza alojada nas fundações da Razão, pronta para emergir de novo, ou penetrar raízes cada vez mais fundo, até trazer o prédio inteiro abaixo.

Por esse ângulo, o gótico constitui uma resposta que se dá a uma inquietação, uma reação que acontece quando somos empurrados para além dos limites culturais que nos são familiares. É curioso notar como esse desassossego cultural freqüentemente se desdobra em questões de identidade nacional e política. Como discurso literário, o gótico teve início com os romancistas ingleses, na metade final do século XVIII, englobando uma solução para a ansiedade causada pela Revolução Francesa que acontecia do outro lado do canal. Com a popularização do romance, nos séculos XIX e XX, as convenções e imagens estabelecidas por esse gótico literário “clássico” difundiram-se pelo mundo e, no século XXI, elas ainda persistem com vigor, ressurgindo nos livros e no cinema. Apesar de o discurso gótico ser um fenômeno transcultural e trans-histórico, sua significação só pode ser estabelecida em um dado espaço e tempo. Isto quer dizer que os significados e as implicações do gótico têm que ser cultural e historicamente observados para que se compreenda seu sentido.

Brazilian Gothic: a gothic villain in the tropics (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

Loredano was suspended over the abyss by his hand; it was in his power to save him or to hurl him into the chasm; yet, even under these circumstances, Ruy feared him. He did not understand the cause of that irresistible terror, but he felt it like an evil spirit besetting him, or a nightmare. Meantime the image of bright and sparkling riches, radiating splendor and magnificence, passed before his eyes and dazzled him; a little courage, and he would be the sole possessor of the fabulous treasure of whose secret the Italian was the depository. But courage was what he lacked. Two or three times he was seized with an impulse to suspend himself to the beam, and let the plank roll into the chasm; it did not go beyond a desire. Finally he overcame the temptation. He had a moment of giddiness; his knees bent, and the plank oscillated so violently that he wondered how the Italian had been able to keep his feet.
Then his fear passed away; it was replaced by a sort of frenzy and rage. His first effort, though involuntary, had given him boldness, as the sight of blood excites a wild beast. A second movement, more violent than the first, agitated the plank, which tilted on the edge of the precipice, but no sound of a falling body was heard, only the noise of the wood upon the rock. Ruy, rendered desperate, was on the point of letting the plank go, when the voice of the Italian, faint and hoarse, scarcely audible in the deep silence of the night, reached his ear. “Are you tired, Ruy? You can take away the plank; I have no further need of it. (The Guarany, part III, chapter III, p. 90)
Despite Ruy’s attempt to make him fall, Loredano walks over the abyss, suggesting the possession of infernal powers. His feat not only defies the laws of probability but claims mastery over the symbol of destruction. A gothic moment of bewilderment above reason is alluded to. The scene does not come without warning; it is a construction of hints fostered from the very beginning about the villain’s malevolence. The villain is called a condottiere, an ‘adventurer of low extraction’ (p.20) who talks ‘with a slight Italian accent, and a half smile whose expression of irony was concealed by a suspicious air of friendliness’ (p. 5). Alencar capitalizes on the Italian stereotype of the British gothic villain. Although Loredano is eloquent and well-spoken, his foreignness is made to stand out in the accent. Loredano is twice the ‘outsider’, both for being the villain and for not being Portuguese or Indian. His appearance is described in the following way:

A swarthy face, covered by a long black beard, through which his contemptuous smile permitted the whiteness of his teeth to glisten; sharp eyes, a wide forehead, which his broad brimmed hat falling upon his shoulders left uncovered; a tall stature, and a strong, active, and muscular constitution: these were the chief traits of this adventurer. (The Guarany, part I, chapter I, p. 6)

He undergoes a gradual process of ‘animalisation’ which begins with ‘an ardent, hard, incisive look, while his dilated nostrils inhaled the air with the delight of a beast scenting its prey’ (p. 15). This transformation of man into beast becomes more and more frequent. In another moment, it is said that ‘his eyes shone in the darkness like those of a wildcat’ (p. 21). He is also called ‘an enemy perhaps more terrible than the Aymorés, because if these were wild beasts, the other might be a serpent concealed among the flowers’ (p. 35).[1]

As the novel develops, Loredano’s plan is revealed and his treason gains blasphemous contours. His lust for Cecy is so strong that he can say: ‘even when a corpse, contact with this woman must be an infinite delight to me’ (p. 89). With the introduction of necrophilia, he begins to transcend the condition of ‘beast’ to become ‘bestial’. On walking over the abyss Loredano becomes the very devil. The narrator concludes that ‘clearly this man was an infernal spirit, hovering over the abyss, and laughing danger to scorn; a superior being, whom death could not touch’ (p. 90). The control he exercises over some of the adventurers is uncanny, described as an ‘irresistible terror’, ‘a nightmare’. Despite the moment of disorientation, not long after, the narrator comes in again to demystify the action. A Radcliffean solution comes in to elucidate the trick (a safety rope), subordinating the improbable to the physical laws and the fantastic to a rational explanation of the facts. It is remarkable here that while Alencar appropriated some of Radcliffe’s ‘poetical’ gothic, based on pictorial Nature and explained supernatural, his villain’s impious behaviour has great similarities to Lewis’ Ambrosio, as both antagonists cannot control their lust.

Loredano shares this ‘animal’ dimension with the Aymoré Indians. Unlike the continual transformation suffered by the villain, the natives are dehumanised from the beginning, but do not come to personify the devil. The Aymorés’ animal-like appearance and behaviour indicate brutality and total absence of civilized customs. They are the image of a savage country Alencar intends to subdue, the ‘children of the woods’, as they are called below, still in the infancy of the race.

While they were busy with this work a savage pleasure lighted up the sinister countenances of the Aymorés, from which ferocity, ignorance, and thirst for blood, had almost wholly blotted out the human type. Their neglected hair fell over their foreheads, and entirely concealed the noblest part of the visage, created by God as the seat of intelligence and the throne from which the mind is to reign over matter. Their misshapen lips, drawn back by a contraction of the facial muscles, had lost the soft and pleasing expression that laughter and speech impart; from human lips they had been transformed into the mandibles of the beast, accustomed to cries and roars. Their teeth, sharp as the fangs of a jaguar, no longer retained the enamel nature had given them, - weapons as well as instruments of mastication, blood had tinged them with the yellowish hue that the teeth of carnivorous animals have. Their long, black, and hooked nails, the rough and callous skin, made their hands rather terrible claws than the members designed to minister to the wants of man.
Skins of animals covered the gigantic bodies of these children of the woods, who, but for their erect posture, might have been considered some species of quadrumana indigenous to the new world. Some were ornamented with feathers and collars of bones; others, completely naked, had their bodies anointed with oil to keep off the insects. (The Guarany, part III, chapter VIII, p. 114)
Stylistically, the adjectives become macabre, but they are no less poetic, if understood under an aesthetic of horror. The indigenous description carries ideological implications underpinned by a horror discourse which performed an important function in this sensibility. Here, Alencar employs strategies that connect body with deformation, creating tensions and contrasts. Traditionally, these narrative techniques, which associate flesh with pain, were a basic strategy for the gothic novelist and constituted the very essence of the Burkean sublime.

After the first moment of consternation, the savages, with wild cries, threw themselves in a single mass, like a wave of the sea, upon the Indian who dared to attack them openly. There was a confusion, a dreadful whirlwind of men jostling each other, falling and twisting; of heads rising and disappearing; of arms and backs moving and contracting, as if they were all parts of a single body, members of some unknown monster writhing in convulsions. (The Guarany, part III, chapter VIII, p. 114)
The gargantuan monster of flesh above refers to a dichotomy of civilization and barbarism. This idea runs alongside a discourse of horror which verifies the preference for rational European habits instead of the rudimentary instinct of the native. Alencar’s persuasiveness comes through by skilfully displacing this discussion in the figure of the hero Pery. The intention is to project the ‘rational’ model as a universal standard, above ethnicity and culture, and Pery would exemplify this proposal. Ideally, he is the synthesis of two worlds, incorporating the nobility of the European with the empiricism of the Indian. However, he is hardly recognisable as an Indian character; his behaviour resembles more the codes of honour followed by a medieval knight. He is even called ‘a Portuguese cavalier in the body of a savage’ (p. 17). Pery is a ‘friend’ as long as he upholds these codes. The climax of his cultural defeat happens when he adopts Christianity. Receiving the name of Mariz is his final acceptance of the coloniser’s belief. His direct opposite and counterpart is Loredano, who is ethnically aligned with the Europeans but moves to the uncivilised, paganistic dimension of the Aymorés, bearer of a ‘rage and fury of Satan hurled into the abyss’ (p. 43). Responsible for sabotaging the Portuguese colonisation project, Loredano rebels against the social configuration in the house of Mariz. Greed for fortune and lack of social mobility seems to trigger his discontent. Being the bearer of a treasure map he does not feel he has to submit to aristocratic rules, but his love for Cecy is his disgrace. Since the Aymorés represent uncivilised brutality, the author discards the love-struck, dissatisfied villain, as being inadequate for his project of nation.

Loredano seems to be the only character capable of promoting changes to his fate in a novel where most characters are ‘flattened’ representatives of social function instead of expressing their individuality. In this sense, their psychological processes are inexpressive, the subjective exploration of the soul does not deepen and the characters do not become ‘humanized’, remaining on the level of caricature. To some extent, Loredano’s personality seems to contain a certain degree of antagonism. It is represented in the opposition between a life of purity and sin; the disagreement between spirit and body is a psychological drama inside the contradictory complex that is the human soul.

Looking at elements of the character’s composition, a few aspects link his profile to those conventions established by the early gothic villains: the dark physical complexion, the threatening eyes, the obscure past, the Italian origins and clerical connections, the double identity, the violent inclinations and the excessive greed. Alencar seems to use the villain popularised in the early gothic to stir feelings of estrangement and alterity among Brazilian readers. Like the gothic novelists he is seeking to raise questions of nationality. However, if the concept of ‘foreigner’ was easily recognisable, proposing a patriotic question around which everyone was able to join in, the project needed acclimatising to make sense in a Brazilian reality. While the traditional gothic novel incorporated the subject of British national identity by speaking in the name of a Protestant, democratic, traditional and modern nation, the same could not be simply transferred to Brazil.

Despite absorbing some gothic elements and conventions, The Guarany deviates from the formula principally by not dislocating its national questions. The conflict is set to be resolved inside the country. Loredano’s foreigner condition is made to stand out in his accent and in his usual jargon such as ‘per Dio’ or ‘per Bacco’. Also while all the Europeans in the house have a Portuguese name, the villain is noticed because of his unusual name.

The villain’s newly assumed identity seems to be a reference to the family name of two of the Doges of Venice, but unlike many gothic villains, Loredano is no noble. This constitutes an important distinction between the British and the Brazilian forms. The antagonist’s past is partially revealed in a tense and mysterious chapter, full of torrential rain and lightning. This story is a sub-plot of the main narration, very similar to both the story of Spalatro and the Baróne di Cambrusca in The Italian.[2] The interpolation (metanarrative) here follows the gothic labyrinthine plot structure. These are stories that resist being told and ultimately conceal rather then reveal their intentions. Loredano is the son of a Venetian fisherman, who enters the Capuchin order, perhaps to escape the same fate as the father. He searches for a better social position in society by assuming the priesthood. The former Angelo di Lucca comes to Brazil to work as a Christian missionary, converting Indians. His possible economic deprivation as a child turns into psychological deprivation, a side effect of monastic imprisonment where his sexuality was repressed. This is revealed the day he discovers a map of the silver mines and abandons the habit for a life of adventures. Reborn as Loredano (l’ore dano, the evil metal?), he now goes to pursue the share of woman and wealth the world owes him. His resentment of society surfaces with the possibilities of enrichment, and the beautiful Cecília becomes a repository of his desire for love. Poverty, excessive ambition and sexual abstinence constitute the Alencarian formula for a villain.

Loredano’s humble origins distinguish him from his potential gothic models, Ambrosio and Schedoni. While most gothic villains, at some point in their lives, benefit from riches and prestige, the ambition in Loredano stems from a life of deprivation which points to what he represents in that context. In this sense the villain gains his own personality. Moreover, further differences push Loredano away from his ‘British’ counterparts. While a sudden change of heart assails the British gothic villains, introducing the moralising tone, public confessions and last minute regrets, Loredano remains unchanged in his final moments.

Before obeying Dom Antônio’s order, they had executed the sentence pronounced against Loredano, and any one at that moment crossing the esplanade would have seen the flames ascending around the post to which the friar was bound. The Italian already felt the fire drawing near and the smoke gathering in a dense cloud about him. It is impossible to describe the rage, anger, and fury, that took possession of him in these moments preceding his punishment. (The Guarany, part IV, chapter IX, p. 137)
In the face of death there is no declared regret that would moralise Loredano’s end, but his punishment is an example for all who diverge from the Christian religion. Burned as a medieval heretic (to be purified by the flames) the ex-friar does not appeal to the mercy of man, beg reconciliation with God or review his conscience. His last moments are silent, frustrated and enraged by a dream of wealth and love that did not materialize. This public burning of heretics at stake is a prime gothic motif used here by Alencar,[3] the Catholic Inquisition adopted this punishment, known as Auto da Fé (an act of faith), as an interpretation of the principle Ecclesia non novit sanguinem (the Church is untainted with blood). Similar to the British model, Alencar does not leave Evil unpunished, albeit he does not force final accommodations, or reconciliations which were common to the British fiction. These differences in the villains’ background, motivations and death seem to be fundamental in revealing who the antagonist is. When assimilating some traces of the gothic mode, Alencar does not reproduce the ideology. He seems to support, above all, values of civilization, rationalism and honour, rather than primitivism, brutality and treachery. Furthermore, the novel proposes principles of domesticity, family and Christianity, while discarding licentiousness, impiety and greed for riches.

After exorcising the Portuguese house of the savage Aymorés and the Italian villain, Alencar seems to be indicating that old aristocratic values, primitivism and greedy ‘foreigners’ in search of wealth, were no longer welcome in 1857 Brazilian society. The gothic is the entitled language, the most suitable discourse for this kind of ‘exorcising’. Loredano differs from his British gothic counterparts; he does not represent fear of a distant French Revolution but Alencar’s unique response to Brazilian anxieties. Alencar’s gothic villain and images represent a cultural response imbricated with imperialist discussion, as the transforming Brazilian society was making way for republican thought. Very much in tune with his time, Alencar saw the possibilities of a country which did not wish to support the anachronic colonial model or foreign exploitation. Loredano is a symbol of this discontent (exorcised by the gothic discourse) along with people who saw Brazil as a place of enterprise enrichment.

‘I will be rich and powerful, though the whole world oppose!’ (p. 43), says Loredano. It is customary to represent the colonialist as a rich man, usually dressed in beige clothes, wiping sweat away with a handkerchief. If British, he might have been wearing a hunter’s hat and a monocle, perhaps drinking tea served in fine white china. Even with a fair amount of postcolonial criticism this rich colonist representation seems to be commonly employed, perpetuating an idea that is not completely correct. Of course some colonialists were very rich and sophisticated, and became even richer in trade while others lost everything in their gamble for wealth. Nevertheless, a significant number of these men actually came from deprived backgrounds. On the docks of Liverpool, for example, they would be recruited by trading and shipping companies to become masters abroad, under this very criterion of poverty. The company knew that their humble origins would constitute the drive in them to make the most of the opportunity. Then, once rich, they would imitate upper class habits and manners. I understand Loredano to be this type of disfavoured adventurer, aspiring to build his fortune. Born into a dispossessed family, he is prepared to invest everything in the possibility of becoming successful; even if it means turning to violence, kidnap and murder. In fact, Loredano could have walked away from the house of Mariz at any time and conquered fortune with his silver mine map. However, as the villain of a romantic novel, his utmost claim is Love. ‘Only I warn you that he who shall cross the threshold of Cecília’s door is a dead man; she is my share of the booty, the lion’s share!’ (p. 39).

[1] On talking about Terror in his treatise about the Sublime, Burke says that many animals are capable of invoking these ideas of transcendence. IN: Edmund Burke. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas about the Sublime and the Beautiful. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958 (p. 57).
[2] See Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, pp. 131-255.
[3] Like Loredano, Ambrosio was also going to be burned alive but he escapes the trial by selling his soul to the Devil. IN: Matthew Lewis, The Monk, pp. 298-300. Maturin also account for the burning of heretics as a source of horror in the English gothic. IN: Charles Maturin. Melmoth, the wanderer, 2000.

Brazilian Gothic: nature, the house reads the forest (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

Alencar’s approach to Nature followed a tradition made popular in Brazil by the German travellers von Spix and von Martius in the 18th century (See: Reise in Brasilien, München, Gedruckt hei M. Lindauer, 1823), who saw Nature as a source of emotion. A generation before Alencar, the French critics Ferdinand Denis, Théodore Taunay and Édouard Corbière brought to the country the ideas of Montaigne, Rousseau and Chateaubriand about the relevance of autochthonous subjects. [1] In that sense, The Guarany produces no philosophical innovation, it is an offspring of the bon sávage model.

Stylistically, in the task of exalting the natural elements, the author frequently invests in broad angles. The opening passage approaches the scene from a bird’s eye perspective, following the river’s trajectory from source to mouth. The image of the mountain also appears in that scene, being used by Alencar to reinforce the idea of ‘wideness’. The rocky plateau is not chosen by chance to hold the house. From the authorial point of view, the vision of a horizon ‘looking proudly over the vast region that opened around him’ (p.4) allows an assessment of the natural beauty of the scene from a privileged viewpoint. Ultimately, this approach is a way of talking about freedom and independence. It also goes well with the 19th century romantic idea that any praise given to the native land reaffirmed the greatness of the nation. Since the merit of a people depended on the ability of the artist to paint the ‘local colour’, it was necessary to imbue the richest images into the description of the landscape.[2]

Seeking a style that could live up to his epic aspirations, Alencar invests in the discourse of the ‘sublime’ and in figures of language, especially hyperbole, to magnify the natural elements. In this specific point, his poetical language can be approximated to that of Ann Radcliffe. In order to give expression to his stylistic capacities, Alencar employs techniques he learned from his readings of gothic novels.[3] He approaches narrative by alternating sensations to excite the reader (using this tension to create climax), contrasting the sublime and the picturesque, proposing the supernatural and then explaining it. Still, as in Radcliffean gothic, a function of Nature I find recurrent in The Guarany are scenes which anticipate future actions. The passage below presents a torrential storm that forecasts the ‘transformation’ of the friar Angelo di Lucca into his alter-ego Loredano.

One of those fearful tempests that frequently occur on the slopes of mountain ranges was descending upon the earth. The bellowing wind lashed the huge trees, which bowed before it their aged trunks; the thunder reverberated in the dense clouds driven hither and thither through the sky; and the lightning flashed with such frequency that forests, mountains, nature itself, seemed bathed in an ocean of fire. [...] leaning against the other column was a Carmelite friar, who watched with a smile of profound satisfaction the progress of the storm. His handsome face and strongly marked features were animated by a ray of intelligence, and an expression of energy that clearly revealed his character. Seeing this man smiling at the tempest and meeting with unflinching eye the flash of the lightning, one perceived that his soul possessed a strength of resolution and an indomitable will capable of wishing the impossible, and contending against heaven and earth to obtain it.
(The Guarany, part II, chapter I, p. 40)

Although Alencar was committed to his project of creating a national literature, at that moment, his ideas still seemed much based on European standards. Because Nature personified the element of national differentiation in literature, it was intended to appear in the novel full of significance, and the tropical environment offered the ideal setting for the manifestation of that spirit. However, despite the vigour, exuberance and sexuality Alencar symbolises in his picture of tropical Nature, he does not succeed in creating an innovative description. His forest is populated by ‘fantastic’ animals and ‘exotic’ plants. In The Guarany Nature is looked at from the perspective of someone who sees the country from outside.

The view from the house situated on the summit of the region, may invoke the beauty of ‘amplitude’, proposing integration between the civilised and the natural. However, it truly establishes a hierarchic relationship proposed by a difference in ‘height’. The elevated position of the house overbears the landscape around it. The intimate association between man and Nature does not seem to resist severe scrutiny. Looking at the scene from another angle, the stairway, ‘made half by nature and half by art’ (p. 1) is used to confirm the capacity of the colonizer in transforming landscape. The proposed communion inside the house is again deceptive. While the objects from the metropolis are presented as fine, artistic or manufactured, the natural products are mere raw material, treated as ‘curiosities of delicate colors and exquisite forms’ (p. 3). Nevertheless, this kind of ‘exotic language’ would be acceptable within the house, which is the space of the coloniser by definition. The problem starts when it spreads to the surrounding Nature.

The forest below the house is described as a ‘dome of verdure’ (p. 6) or ‘arcades of verdure, with capitals formed by the fans of the palm trees’ (p. 1) and ‘shady vaults of verdure [...], for which the ancient trunks of acaris and araribas served as columns’ (p. 6). The trees invoke features that denote architectural structures found primarily in castles and churches. The plateau on which the house stands is compared to a natural ‘altar’. Further references introduce religious convictions in the forest environment, ‘the light in passing through the dense foliage was entirely absorbed, and not a ray of the sun penetrated into this temple of creation’ (p. 6). The stream and the river also assume feudal references, being called ‘vassal and tributary’ (p. 1). In the lexical choices, Nature becomes a bearer of ideologies, describing the natural in terms of the civilized. It shows an altered ecosystem in which the house becomes the defining voice of the landscape, interpreting and classifying the forest according to its standards. In that sense, the house reads the forest presenting Nature as a source of raw material, while it is the transforming agent.

Could it be a misinterpretation in the project Alencar set himself? No, I believe the picture is more complex than this. By re-locating such a repertoire of discursive terms to the Brazilian landscape, the writer does not intend to submit to the European matrices (nor is he seeking to conceal it). On the contrary, these textual references are a stratagem to quote the foreign tradition. His manipulation of the elements is conscious, to a certain extent. Alencar seems to be saying: if they (Europeans) have castles we (Brazilians) have strong, ancient trees; if they possess temples, our sanctuary is the forest; and if they have knights in shiny metallic armour, we have noble and dextrous Indians adorned with beautiful feathers. His thinking is perfectly coherent and consistent with a Rousseauesque tradition, which ranks Nature above society. However, the comparison is ingenuous in the way it uses the foreign ‘scale’. Instead of measuring it against castles and abbeys, Alencar should have pursued a significant aesthetic rupture. Perhaps what lacked in his account was the invention of a truly original model, rather than the creation of a tropical version of European tradition. But could he? His comprehension of nationality, which worked with the simplistic dichotomy native/foreigner, took him as far as destroying the Portuguese house (imperialism) and trying to measure up to the European architectural heritage. Nevertheless, The Guarany does promote an unprecedented breakthrough, showing that Alencar was in certain ways ahead of his time. His real advance consists of introducing the concept of a multicultural nation by celebrating racial mixture, which is an essential characteristic of Brazilian society and in so doing he ultimately rejects the gothic demonising of his central images.

[1] Antonio Candido. A Formação da Literatura Brasileira (Momentos Decisivos). 7a. edição. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1993 (pp. 260-3).

[2] In his translation of The Guarany J.W. Hawes omitted some passages, usually the ones where Alencar gives lengthy descriptions of Nature.

[3] Sandra Vasconcelos work on English novels circulating in Brazil during the 19th century, provides a long list of gothic authors, including Beckford, Godwin, Lewis (and his translation of Zschokke) and Radcliffe. IN: Sandra G. T. Vasconcelos. Romances Ingleses em Circulação no Brasil durante o séc. XIX. UNICAMP site. <http://www.unicamp.br/iel/memoria/Ensaios/Sandra/sandralev.htm>

Brazilian Gothic: the House of Mariz (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2006)

The tropical fortress-cum-manor of the nobleman D. Antônio de Mariz can be read in the novel as being the European element which appears in the Brazilian landscape to interfere and modify its balance. In that sense, the house stands for the enterprise of the first colonizers in their civilising effort, since in The Guarany the foundation of Brazil is not intended to be an encounter between any civilization and Nature, but of Portuguese culture with a subdued Nature.

When applied to the novel, the Bakhtinian chronotope[1] presents the house as the point where the paths of all characters cross. This delimiting of the creative universe, turning the house into a ‘stage’ for the action about to unravel, may reveal significant aspects of Alencar’s conception of Brazilianness and his project for the construction of a national literature. The image of the house, together with the characters that dwell there, make it a very meaningful example of how Alencar read foreign models and set himself the task of creating national equivalents.

From one of the summits of the Organ Mountains glides a small stream, which flows northerly, and enlarged by the springs which it receives in its course of ten leagues, becomes a considerable river. It is the Paquequer. Leaping from cascade to cascade, winding like a serpent, it dozes at last in the plain, and empties into the Parahyba, which rolls majestically in its vast bed. Vassal and tributary of that king of waters, the little river, haughty and overbearing to its rocks, bows humbly at the feet of its sovereign. It loses then its wild beauty; its waves are calm and peaceful as those of a lake, and do not rebel against the boats and canoes that glide over them. A submissive slave, it feels the lash of its master. It is not at this point that it should be seen, but three or four leagues above its mouth, where it is still free. There the Paquequer rushes rapidly over its bed, and traverses the forests foaming and filling the solitude with the noise of its career.
Vegetation in those regions formerly displayed all its luxuriance and vigor; virgin forests extended along the margins of the river, which flowed through arcades of verdure, with capitals formed by the fans of the palm trees.
In the year of grace 1604, the place we have been describing was deserted and uncultivated; the city of Rio de Janeiro had been founded less than half a century, and civilization had not had time to reach the interior.
However, on the right bank of the river stood a large and spacious house, built on an eminence, and protected on all sides by a steep wall of rock. The esplanade on which the building was placed formed an irregular semi-circle, containing at most two hundred square yards. On the north side there was a stairway of freestone, made half by nature and half by art.
Descending two or three of the broad stone steps, one found a wooden bridge solidly built across a wide and deep fissure in the rock. Continuing to descend, one reached the brink of the river, which lowed in a graceful curve, shaded by large gamelleiras and angelins, that grew along its banks. On each side of the stairway was a row of trees, widening gradually, enclosing like two arms the bend of the river; between the trunks of these trees a high hedge of thorns made that little valley impenetrable.(The Guarany, part I, chapter I, p. 1)
The passage above is basically describing a river and small manor built amidst the tropical wilderness. The river Paquequer is described a ‘vassal’ and ‘tributary’ of the mightier river Parahyba, although, ‘it is not at this point that it should be seen, but three or four leagues above its mouth, where it is still free’. A deeper look into this scene may unlock a world of possible inferences,[2] but a more explicit reference to this sudden ‘return’ in the narrative is the signification of the past (the foundational moment) in the novel, and the key importance of national independence (freedom/Nature). For the moment, I will focus on the isolated position of the building, which is set on a rock, on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by a river and lost in the forest. The image points to the inaccessibility of the house by stressing its defensiveness, which suggests the ambience of a medieval castle. The image also intends to communicate a close integration between Nature and man, proposed by the stairway ‘made half by nature and half by art’. The combination of the raw material found in the forest and the masonry techniques from civilization creates a house which, at certain points, blends with the surface of the immense rock.

The house of Mariz emerges in this scenery as the mark of the colonizers, a nucleus of civilization and culture in a largely unexplored region. D. Antônio’s concern with protection is justified by the inhospitable location and the times they lived in, days away from the city of Rio de Janeiro and susceptibility to the dangers of the early periods of colonization, such as tribal and wild animal attacks. The seclusion in which they were found obliged D. Antônio to maintain a group of forty retainers for protection. Distant from the major urban centre, this group of people living together constitutes a mini-kingdom in the forest.

This little community, governed by its own laws, its own usages and customs; its members united together by ambition for wealth, and bound to their chief by respect, by the habit of obedience, and by that moral superiority which intelligence and courage exercise over the masses.
(The Guarany, part I, chapter II, p. 5)

The community is presented in such a way as to draw a parallel with a feudal organisation. The group seems to be under a control based on an aristocratic ‘ruled by the best’ concept. But while medieval times were regarded in Europe as a celebration of the past, the absence of medieval references in Brazil made Alencar adopt the colonial period as its substitute. He incorporated characteristics which belonged to the medieval imagination in that household, inserted in the tropical landscape. A visit inside the main house will reinforce this idea, as symbols point to the cultural identity and traditions of the inhabitants and the values they are associated with.

The principal room displayed a certain luxury, which seemed impossible at that period in a wilderness like this. The walls and ceiling were white washed, but ornamented with a wide border of flower-work in fresco; between the windows hung two portraits representing an aged nobleman and an elderly lady, and over the canter door was painted a coat of arms. A large red damask curtain, on which the same arms were reproduced, concealed this door, which was rarely opened, and which led into a chapel. Opposite, between the two center windows, was a small canopy, closed by white curtains with blue loops. High-backed leather chairs, a rosewood table with turned feet, a silver lamp suspended from the ceiling, constituted the furniture of the room, which breathed a severe and gloomy air.
The inner apartments were in the same style, save the heraldic decorations. In the wing of the building, however, this aspect suddenly changed, and gave place to a fanciful and dainty one, which revealed the presence of a woman. Indeed, nothing could be more beautiful than this room, in which silk brocatels were mingled with the pretty feathers of our birds, entwined in garlands and festoons around the border of the ceiling, and upon the canopy of a bedstead standing on a carpet of skins of wild animals. In a corner an alabaster crucifix hung upon the wall, with a gilt bracket at its feet. At a little distance, on a bureau, was seen one of those Spanish guitars that the gypsies introduced into Brazil when expelled from Portugal, and a collection of mineral curiosities of delicate colors and exquisite forms. Near the door was an article that at first sight could not be defined; it was a kind of bedstead or sofa of variegated straw, interwoven with black and scarlet feathers. A royal heron impaled, ready to take flight, held in its beak the curtain of blue taffeta that concealed this nest of innocence from profane eyes, opening it with the points of its white wings that fell over the door. The whole breathed a sweet aroma of benzoin.(The Guarany, part I, chapter I, p. 3)
The heraldic decoration displayed on doors and walls claim a genealogy of tradition and nobility. A coat of arms and the picture of ‘an aged noblemen and an elderly lady’ help to stress the aristocratic origins of that family. As with the suggestion in the stairway portrayal, the decoration proposes a mixture of objects from both the kingdom and elements from the forest, ‘in which silk brocatels were mingled with the pretty feathers of our birds’. Here again, not only are there feudal implications in the environment but the author tries to create interaction between man and Nature, implying a sensation of parity between the two forces. However, this integration does not seem to be as smooth as it is presented. In the phrase ‘the feathers of our birds’, the pronoun echoes peculiarly the proposed combination and it will be thoroughly challenged in the next section, which addresses the subject of Nature. In what concerns the medieval hints, if the positioning of the house, the description of the community and the decoration inside the building were not suggestive enough of the connection he is trying to construct; to make sure the reader gets the point, Alencar states that ‘the house was a genuine castle of a Portuguese nobleman’ (p. 4) and in that isolated region it ‘took place of a feudal castle in the middle ages’ (p. 4).

However, moved by the idea of creating a national novel, Alencar seems to know that a distinct reality expects different literary solutions and the appropriations do not seem to have occurred without, at least, an attempt at subverting the medieval picturesque. In rescuing images, themes and symbols that describe the house in the light of the castle, he seems to be pursuing a link with European romanticism. The house of Mariz is a historical ‘link’ that in a given moment congregated the past of Brazil and Portugal. This bond allows him to make use of a pseudo-medieval repertoire. Nevertheless, it is a connection which he intends to destabilize, as it is no longer useful for a recently independent country. The house of Mariz is blown up even before the novel comes to term, implying that the Portuguese contribution (already assimilated) is no longer necessary. The destruction of the household, in the symbolic plan, would signify a rupture with the colonial past and perhaps the belief that Brazilian writers should assume a different position from that undertaken by the European novelists.

The fall of Portuguese imperialism is a necessary condition for the re-reading of the country, and in the novel it seems to be connected to two specific motives. The first one is the murder of a young Indian girl by the dandyish son of D. Antônio, Diogo de Mariz, representing the violence promulgated by the conquerors. This seemingly involuntary assassination triggers the revenge of the Aymoré tribe, who besiege the house, and discharge the fatal retaliation. Faced with the inevitable, D. Antônio is obliged to ignite his secret gun-powder deposit at the last moment. He dies by his own hand, avoiding being eaten by the cannibal tribe. In that sense, the Aymorés embody the untamed natural forces which confront the colonizers. The tribe stands for an uncivilised Brazilianness and the battle between the parts represent the brutal dimension of colonization. Alencar also discards the tribe’s primitivism before the end, as he sees it also has no place in the future of the nation.

However, no less significant to the literal and symbolic ruin of the house, are the schemes of the villain Loredano. The conflict the foreigner incites weakens the internal unit of the house, undermining its cohesion and precipitating its downfall. The evil antagonist represents what seems to be a class struggle inside that society. The reasons for his treason seem to arise from discontent in the social configuration of the community (he is denied contact with the beautiful Cecy, D. Antônio’s daughter). Far from primitive, his intrigues depend on an elaborate plan of action, political alliances and even coercion of weaker characters by means of a ‘paper containing the infernal plot’, validated with ‘seals of black wax’ (p. 37) from a notary.

The house of Mariz was organised to divide people into classes, and in these partitions nobility was a feature to be observed. While the Portuguese aristocracy inhabited the manor, ‘in the rear, entirely separated from the rest of the dwelling by a wall, were two storehouses or porches, which served as an abode for adventurers and dependents.’ (p. 3). The segregation between the people is more than a matter of being lodged in different buildings. There is a wall between the buildings imposing an abrupt physical division. But rather than fencing out the common people, the hierarchic split seems to be highlighting the marooned condition of the Portuguese aristocracy, who seem to call destruction upon themselves by insisting on a pyramidal society. As a result, the ruin of that social fabric seems to be linked to the violent practices and excesses committed by the colonizers, the imposed values of nobility and the restraint on social mobility. The betrayal of the antagonist delivers a blow to the aristocratic class, although it is D. Antônio who commits ‘class suicide’. Loredano’s conspiracies disclose him as a rebellious character, who likes to stir the mob. From another angle, he can be seen as entrepreneurial and egalitarian, even willing to share gains with his accomplices. For that reason I see Loredano as a bourgeois revolutionary, but perhaps, more accurately on a Lukásian note,[3] a representative of the ongoing liberalism of 1857. Once more, Alencar is not impressed by his skills. As a representative of a ‘savage’ capitalism (the kind that employs ‘contracts’ to subdue alleged partners and plot murder), Loredano is vehemently rejected. Again the villain does not make it to the end, being discarded before the dénouement.

The scene of the destruction of the house is extraordinarily gothic, it is compared to ‘those fleeting visions that flash upon the disordered imagination’ (p.140).[4] In this regard it assimilates Alencar’s writing to those Radcliffean categories of the sublime, drawing upon emotional experiences which distort the perception of reality.

The front of the house was in darkness; the fire had control of the other sides, and the wind was driving it toward the rear. Pery at the first glance had seen the forms of the Aymorés moving in the shadow, and the fearful and horrid figure of Loredano amid the flames that were devouring him. Suddenly the front of the building fell upon the esplanade, crushing in its fall a large number of savages. It was then that the weird picture presented itself to Pery’s eyes.
The hall was a sea of fire; the figures moving amid the glare seemed to be swimming on waves of flame. In the rear stood out the majestic form of Dom Antônio de Mariz, erect in the center of the armory, holding aloft in his left hand an image of Christ, and with his right pointing his pistol to the dark cavern where slept the volcano. His wife, calm and resigned, was clasping his knees; Ayres Gomes and the few remaining adventurers, kneeling motionless at his feet, formed an appropriate setting for that statue worthy of a master’s chisel.
On the heap of ruins formed by the falling wall were seen the horrid figures of the savages, like evil spirits dancing amid the infernal flames.
All this Pery saw at a single glance of the eye, like a living picture lighted up for a moment by the instantaneous flash of the lightning.(The Guarany, part IV, chapter X, p. 140)

The whole scene, observed through Pery’s eyes, exposes the Portuguese death-bound codes of honour, based on manliness and Christianity. It is interesting that Pery sees D. Antônio as a statue, an effigy of a dead imperial culture. This reinforces my previous point, namely, that Alencar is looking back to the values on which Brazil was built, but which do not have to be carried into the future of the country. Without denying the Portuguese contribution to the formation of Brazil, and proposing a different way from that taken by the European romantics, Alencar must account for a very recent colonial memory that cannot be ignored but, perhaps, might be surpassed by the creation of a national myth. The Indian Pery and the Portuguese Cecy will personify this myth. The only two survivors from the house are the distilled best of the two worlds and will symbolically represent the mother and the father of the future nation. The connection between the two characters evolves from an initial awkwardness to a friendship, then a brother/sister relationship to possible lovers. As they drift on the top of a palm tree (a love nest?), caught up in a flood with biblical reference, a sexual act is suggested.

Pery’s ardent breath fanned her cheek. A nest of chaste blushes and limpid smiles overspread the maiden’s face; her lips opened like the purple wings of a kiss taking its flight.
The palm tree, borne along by the impetuous torrent, hurried on and disappeared in the distance.
* * *
(The Guarany, part IV, chapter XI, p. 152)

It can be noticed here that instead of turning to a historical past, Alencar projects the conclusion of the novel to the future. The Guarany refuses a ‘wrapping up’; the punctuation leaves the end open suggesting a nation ‘under construction’. At the same time, the union between the Indian and the Portuguese addresses issues of hybridism and multiculturalism in the population. In doing that, Alencar is seeking value (sometimes naively) in what he believed to be the most distinctive and original traces of the Brazilian culture: the Indian and the tropical nature.

[1] Mikhail Bakhtin. ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel’. IN: The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: Texas, 2000 (pp. 84 -258).
[2] Valéria de Marco uses the river in this passage to demonstrate how slavery is approached in The Guarany through language, ‘A submissive slave, it feels the lash of its master’. Her work replies to a common criticism made to the novel, the absence of the African as a contributor to the formation of the country. Because The Guarany is actually set before the slave trade started, Alencar's critics said he avoided the subject. The attack is not particularly convincing as Marco’s work shows. IN: Valéria de Marco. A Perda das Ilusões: O Romance Histórico de José de Alencar. Campinas: Editora da UNICAMP, 1993.
[3] Lukács demonstrates how the historical novel reflects questions in the present. IN: Georg Lukács. The Historical Novel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1983.

[4] Sage calls these moments of gothic misperception la coda dell’ochio, indicating a fantastic vision that is later denied by rational, materialist viewpoint. IN: Victor Sage. ‘J.G. Farrell’s Imperial Gothic’. IN: Empire and the Gothic. London: Palgrave, 2003 (pp. 175-176).