The tribute to Lima Barreto carries on. This post is a summary of three article. The first was published at https://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/handle/123456789/95708. The second was published at https://repositorio.unesp.br/handle/11449/204384. The third was published at https://www.revistas.usp.br/linguaeliteratura/article/view/115700/113228
This thesis aims at questioning the possible relations between Lima Barreto personal writings and chronicles with Vida e Morte de Gonzaga de Sá, (1919) his last published novel. Though widely considered as minor genres, the private writings and chronicles are here seen as points of connections and development of his fictional work, but they also can sometimes be seen as potential works of fiction. The social micro reading, which is typical of Lima Barreto is clearly seen in his personal writings and chronicle. In Vida e Morte de Gonzaga de Sá it determines the novel structure with its uneventful plot, composed of insights into everyday life and of memory recollections. It is not a denunciatory novel as Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha (1909) and neither a realist novel as Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma (1015). Thus, the train, the cars, the stamps, and fashion are trails of the modernization process that Brazil was going through and they become the subject of the aleatory conversation between Gonzaga de Sá and Augusto Machado. Lima Barreto points out in his literary production problems faced by the vulnerable population in the new social conformation that appeared in the period called First Republica (1890-1930).Dedicating himself to reporting dramas of the excluded, the writer becomes an important source to understand dilemmas occurred during Belle Époque age. In a simple language, acquired as a journalist, he will assume a combative role against remaining and deep injustices, creating an engaged and criticism literature. We approach how Lima Barreto saw these problems and how his engagement in literature was formed and intensified over the years in different works and chronicles. Discussing countless subjects happening in a country with intense transformation, we will try to address, in addition to the influences Lima Barreto received and shaped him as a writer, themes such as women, racism, disorderly growth throughout the city and people exclusion. City of Rio de Janeiro is important in his works, which show us how poor people were taken to the city outskirts, detailing a difficult social drama to solve. Lima Barreto's attitude toward the inclusion and balance of environmental factors and individual tendencies is a kind of thesis of the literary tradition, which preceded him. He favored a return to the sensitivity, idealism, and to the importance of human values, which had been lost in Realism and Naturalism, which had attached excessive attention to the outside world. Lima Barreto was attracted and dreamed of writing a naturalistic novel, but it would be a more psychological one, that is, one which granted more attention and dignity to the individual. He also thought that the excesses of fantasy which were observed in Romanticism should be avoided, that the work of art should be plausible, and reflect reality. Another explanation accounting for Lima Barreto's moralistic attitude toward society was the influence he suffered from the positivistic philosophy of Auguste Comte. He accepted the necessity of a moral transformation before a social reorganization for the better could take place. The latter would be carried out with the help of science.Lima Barreto places literature at the service of sociology. This would help bring about the eventual change in society that he longed for so much. In reference to the moral reformation that must precede any social upheaval, however, Lima Barreto seems to have faith in literature as a self-sufficient force. For him the mission of literature was to break down the barriers of incomprehension between men of different races, epochs, beliefs, social classes by explaining one to the other and showing them the bond they all have in common: sorrow and suffering. Lima Barreto anticipates the movement in world literature called "literatura comprometida" which Guilhermo de Torre states began after World War I. He believed that every writer should be committed to resolving the outstanding social problems of his time. Much of what Lima Barreto says with regard to the moral purpose of literature, the concern for contemporary problems, had been said more than thirty-five years earlier by Eça de Queiroz who in turn took most of his ideas from Proudhon, the French philosopher. Lima Barreto believed that an author must not allow the pressure of professional groups to determine his own opinion. He must constantly struggle against those suppressive elements in his environment, in order to be outspoken and personal in what he writes. Though the society which surrounds him will necessarily be reflected in his works, his attitude towards that society must be original, a result of his own experiences and independent meditation. Lima Barreto hoped to reform society in a moral sense. He wanted all classes, all races, all nationalities to understand and love each another in the humanitarian sense. He wished also to reveal the evils by making his public aware that they exist. Lima Barreto thought that all individual, having become aware of the bad things and in themselves and of the things they had in common with all human beings, would perhaps act to improve society.
