Abstract

BLIKSTEIN, Izidoro. Hell in the work of Graciliano Ramos: a semiotic obsession. J. psicanal. [online]. 2011, vol.44, n.81, pp. 233-244. ISSN 0103-5835.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the search for the meaning of the word hell is a semiotic obsession that pervades through the entire work of Graciliano Ramos. All starts with the doubt that assails the oldest boy, character of Vidas Secas, when he, upon hearing a “strange word” - hell -, tries to find out its meaning, asks his mother (sinhá Vitória), father (Fabiano) and even the dog Baleia, but cannot figure out what hell is. In asking the question “What is hell?” the boy at once establishes a semiotic problem, in the extent that, according to the classic lesson of Ferdinand de Saussure, he holds the significant, but does not know the meaning. When asking for explanations to his mother, the boy learns that hell is “a bad place”. To understand this meaning, he asks sinhá Vitória if she had ever gone to hell to know if it was a bad place. This inquiry earns him a rebuke and a blow to the head. But the question of the boy was the most legitimate semiotic practice, because how would sinhá Vitória know that hell is a bad place, if she had never been there? We are before a broad semiotic issue involving the relationship between the signs, the knowledge and the reality. To explain the knowledge of sinhá Vitória about hell, we must resort to the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and, more specifically, to his concepts of intertextuality and polyphony. In the article, we will demonstrate how hell is a “reality” built by a whole network of intertextual and polyphonic discourses, produced in different times and cultures. It is precisely against this semiotic construction performed by the discourse of the adult world that Graciliano rebels in Infância (Childhood), in the extent that he questions “the certainties” of institutions (family, school, religion). And it is not a coincidence that one of these “certainties” questioned is the existence of hell. In Infância (Childhood), by denying hell, defying his own mother and the Church, Graciliano is actually the oldest boy of Vidas Secas in obstinate search for the meaning of the world.

Keywords : Semiotics; Sign; Referent; Intertextuality; Polyphony.

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