Introduction by Sílvio Lôbo Júnior
In the face of repression where censorship controls the media and stifles freedom of expression, people tend to express themselves through alternative means. Literature is the primary medium for this expression.
Since the dawn of human history, humans have created abstract texts, using and abusing symbolism to convey the ideal of freedom to the persecuted group or to denounce reality.
Many texts have been written with the aim of denouncing reality during times of repression. The most well-known of these is undoubtedly the Book of Revelation, found in Holy Scripture. In it, a supposed John, imprisoned on the Island of Patmos, writes to the leaders of the churches in Asia to denounce the abuses of the Roman government. In an environment of persecution and censorship, the author of this book uses abstract language full of symbolism. The leaders of Christian communities are called angels, Emperor Domitian, who after his coronation began to sign himself "Domicinianus Dominus" (Domitian Lord and God), is described in this book as the Beast who claims to be God, and is followed by another Beast who launches fire upon the cities to display his power, namely Nero in his spectacles where he ordered villages in lower Rome to be set ablaze.
As can be seen, abstract texts, symbolism, and artistic struggle for Revelation (unveiling what is covered) are not new, but rather a human reaction to fight against censorship where freedom of expression is non-existent.
This work begins with the same focus. With the aim of describing the artistic symbolism employed in a work of hidden beauty, which denounces events that occurred recently, whose characters still walk among us, and which much needs to be understood for justice to be served.
Hail, Weapons!
Darcy França DENÓFRIO
Master in Literary Theory. Poet,
essayist, and Adjunct Professor (retired) of the Department of Letters at UFG.
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The montage (hail+weapons) expressed in Avarmas, which names a collection of short stories by Miguel Jorge, published by Ática in 1978, points to one of the many poetic resources that he and other Brazilian short story writers, especially from the 1960s onwards, began to incorporate into narrative texts. But, until then, the short story had gone through a long process of transformation.
The traditional short story _ as a story that unfolds linearly before the reader's eyes, with a beginning, middle, and end; containing a conflict that is almost always very clear to the reader; a reduced number of characters without any psychological depth; a short lapse of time and restricted space; absolute objectivity, with emphasis on the characters' actions and not on what can be inferred from them _ already appeared in Brazil in the 19th century, around 1840. From early precursor experiments in newspapers, around 1836, the short story gradually gained literary dimensions. However, according to Herman Lima, "if the literary short story did not begin with Machado de Assis, it was consolidated with him, receiving from his hands a treatment that none of the others before him had given it (...)". Regarding short narratives, Machado's first publications are from 1860. His first published work in the genre, Contos fluminenses, is from 1870, a hundred years therefore before the phase of intense experimentation that the Brazilian short story went through.
Assis Brasil considers that only with the publication of Samuel Rawett's work, Contos do imigrante, in 1956, did the course of Brazilian short narrative deviate. For him, this Jewish-Polish writer, who came to Brazil at the age of six, "breaks the Machadian tradition among us," being the inventor of the "flagrante" (snapshot) short story, in the style of Chekhov. And Antônio Hohlfeldt, in Conto brasileiro contemporâneo, lists, also seeking the opinion of esteemed critics, the characteristics of Rawett's short stories, the first of which is that they are centered on characters. Summarizing, the other characteristics would be the destruction of the plot, or the presence of a tenuously constructed plot, which would inevitably destroy the clear notion of time and space; the syncopated sentence, appropriate to the harshness and anguish of the situation that envelops his text and character; the fabulistic poverty compensated by a richness of inner action, expressed through certain narrative techniques, such as interior monologues and soliloquies; the revelation of the "human animal," its solitude, and its difficulty in communicating or even its incommunicability. Among these are some of the main characteristics of the so-called experimental short story, that is, of that short story in which its creators experimented with new forms or processes of writing short narratives.
For Alfredo Bosi, however, it was Alcântara Machado, son of a traditional São Paulo family, "who was the first to show sensitivity to the turning point of fictional prose, dedicating himself entirely to renewing the structure and pace of the short story." And this, it is worth noting, almost 30 years before Rawett's experiments. His short story collections Brás, Bexiga e Barra Funda, from 1927, and Laranja da china, from 1928, are indeed built on the paths opened by the experimental prose of Mário and Oswald de Andrade. The interesting thing is that both he and Rawett brought the immigrant to the scene. And often our memory betrays us: when speaking of "Gaetaninho," a short story by Alcântara Machado, we remember "Gringuinho," by Samuel Rawett, sometimes even confusing the title of one with the other.
