Intellectual configuration in the novel S. Bernardo

Abstract

This paper tries to characterize the narrator’s voice in the novel S. Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos, as a critical conscience which accompanies and evaluates fictional facts, presenting himself as an intellectual. Either in a direct way, as a narrator or character, or in the various forms of focalization, that figure is found out in all great literature and tends to create an instance which reflects on the subject of the narration, aiming at discussing historical, social, political issues broached in the novel. His exam opens perspectives for understanding the represented sociopolitical context and the way of learning the topics broached by the author. In Brazil, the presence of the intellectual may be observed in classic writers’ works such as Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Mário de Andrade, Graciliano Ramos, Cyro dos Anjos, but his configuration takes on a particular interest in novels which express yearnings for social and political changes, like the ones published in the 1930s.