A geografia das margens: um estudo sobre a relação entre espaço e a opressão social em Lima Barreto

Abstract

This research aims to seek a dialogue between two lines of research, Geography and Literature, giving emphasis to issues of expression and social exclusion in the work of Lima Barreto, emphasizing his chronicles. This research will allow a range of opportunities to understand human relationships, their environment, their peers and the space man occupies. Literature as artistic and reflexive expression may give rise to a deepening of geographic space issues, setting the understanding between the parties through the man-space and place interaction. Just as geography sought to narrow its object of study - the space - with the other sciences, literature also was not idle, it managed to give voice to a group of writers whose artistic expressions, originated on less privileged classes, left on a movement in defense of their own narratives. Then marginal-Literature arises over time, with its various nuances and peculiarities, addressing issues of social exclusion and prejudice, on several levels. Those “marginal authors” were placed, in some way outside the literary canons. They have addressed significant issues such as hunger, inequality and social injustice, poverty, prejudice and discrimination suffered not only by the intellectual class as well as by a society composed by the ruling elite. We highlight in this exclusionary process the writer Lima Barreto, explicitly discriminated by the color of his skin and his social condition. From Lima Barreto, passing by Carolina Maria de Jesus, by Mimeograph Generation, the term “Marginal” has been used to describe various groups, quite different from each other, culminating in Authors like Ferréz and Sacolina, from COOPERIFA (Cooperativa dos escritores marginais de periferia) [Cooperative of marginal writers of periphery] . Without bringing specifically the marginal literature, this work touches this subject. Lima Barreto lived in a time when Rio de Janeiro was troubled politically and socially, in the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, because of the strong interference of European culture, imported by the rulers of the time. The formation of the space created by foreign influence, known as the Belle Époque, caused profound changes not only in its geographic instance, but mainly in the psycho-social area of the population. This influence besides affecting the habits and customs of the population, reflected also in the context of language. Lima Barreto's fictional work did not get the acceptance he expected. The author struggled by the appreciation of literature, by respect for Brazilian culture and, above all, against oppression and social exclusion.