Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: CLARA GLENDA MENDES GALDINO

THE FALL OF PARADISE: THE TRAUMA OF MODERNIZATION IN ORFÃOS DO ELDORADO, BY MILTON HATOUM

Keywords: contemporary brazilian literature; memory; space; modernization; Milton Hatoum.

This dissertation focuses on the contemporary work Órfãos do Eldorado (2008) by Milton Hatoum as its research subject. Set in the first half of the 20th century and situated along the banks of the Amazon River, with movements between the fictional city of Vila Bela, the metropolis Manaus, and the Enchanted City (referring to the Eldorado myth), the story is narrated in a memoir-like fashion, orally presented by an elderly character – a son of the elite of the rubber boom – in his now impoverished and peripheral existence. The central theme revolves around his economic, familial, and romantic decline. Given these characteristics, the aim of this research is to investigate the intersections between memory and space in "Órfãos do Eldorado" (2008), with a view to understanding how the work internalizes Brazilian society in its fictional universe – especially regarding modernization and its connection to authoritarianism and violence. To achieve this, we specifically delve into the construction of memory and space in the narrative, examine how this connection reflects social, economic, and political issues of modernization, and contextualize the discussion in the contemporary context, understanding the symptomatic condition and role of this literature. The theoretical and methodological framework is based on the assumptions of integrative criticism by Antonio Candido (2006) and Roberto Schwarz (1987; 1999), intending to elucidate the relationship between text and context; and Ozíris Borges Filho (2004) to guide the investigation of literary space. For the discussion of memory, we draw from Maurice Halbwachs (2004), Michael Pollak (1989), and Márcio Seligmann-Silva (2000), emphasizing the debate on the concepts of individual memory, collective memory, and traumatic memory. Additionally, Aleida Assman (2016) and Ecléa Bosi (1979) are used to discuss the connection between memory and spaces. Gagnebin (2006; 2012), Berman (2007), and Benjamin (1989; 1994) contribute to addressing the structural relationship with the shock of modern society, a focus on Brazil and the Amazon explored through the works of Lilia Schwarcz (2015; 2019) and Márcio Souza (2019). As a partial result of the analysis, it is observed that Brazilian modernization – represented by the rubber cycles in the Amazon – is internalized as an authoritarian and violent trace linked to the decline of both the individual and narrative spaces, which are ravaged by inequality. This aspect even denies the escape from the place through imagination-mythification: the myth is reified and destroyed by symbolized reality. Modernization thus configures itself as a collective trauma that persists in the present.