BETWEEN STEREOTYPES AND (DE)CONSTRUCTIONS: THE CONFIGURATION OF LITERARY SPEECH IN THE REPRESENTATION OF SERTíO IN A BAGACEIRA, BY JOSÉ AMÉRICO DE ALMEIDA

Abstract

The representation of the Northeast, specially the Sertão, was characterized for a long time in a pejorative caricature as a synonym for drought, misery, and lagging development to the dominant culture. The inerent discourses to these constructions increase a sertão that does not fit the sertanejo as people, discussing here their humanization and cultural construct and knowledge. Bearing in mind these stereotypes and discursive constructions, this work aims to analyze the construction of literary discourse in the representation of sertão in the work A bagaceira, by José Américo de Almeida, having as analytical categories the place of sertão in the narrative, the social, cultural and geographical contexts, as well as the structure of the characters. The method employed is a qualitative approach, and the review of literature is guided by reading and discussing the bibliographic contribution used in this work. For this, we utilize the studies by Albuquerque Júnior (2011), Coutinho (1986, 1999), Maingueneau (2009), Chartier (1991), Bourdieu (2005), among others, to discuss, respectively, the discursive constructions about the Northeast/Sertão, the Northeastern Regionalism/Cycle, the Literary Discourse and concepts of Representation and Power. The impressions obtained in the analysis corroborate the enunciations about the Northeast/Sertão, ruled in representation and discourse that leads to a double path, since sometimes it reproduces stereotypes and discourses of national imagination, and sometimes it breaks and displaces them to think about the backings in the identity national construction and sertanejo people.