Banca de DEFESA: CLARA GLENDA MENDES GALDINO

THE FALL FROM PARADISE: AN ANALYSIS OF MEMORY AND SPACE IN

ORFÃOS DO ELDORADO, BY MILTON HATOUM

Keywords: contemporary brazilian literature; memory; space; modernization; Milton Hatoum.

This dissertation analyzes the contemporary novel Órfãos do Eldorado (2008), by Milton Hatoum. Set between the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, along the banks of the Amazon River, with shifts between the fictional city of Vila Bela, the metropolis of Manaus, and the Enchanted City (a reference to the El Dorado myth), the story is narrated in a memorialistic and oral style by an elderly character—son of the Amazonian Rubber Boom elite—who now lives in poverty and on the periphery. The apparent conflict is the disappearance of his beloved and his consequent decline. The aim was to investigate the construction of memory and space to understand how the work internalizes society in its fictional universe, particularly regarding Brazilian and Amazonian modernization. Specifically, the research sought to identify the different mobilizations of memory within the structure, examine the formal construction of memory and space in the narrative and their linkages, and verify how this connection reflects social, economic, and political issues. The theoretical-methodological foundation of the research includes the integrative criticism of Antonio Candido (2023a; 2023b) and Roberto Schwarz (2014; 1987; 1985), as well as Ozíris Borges Filho (2004) to explore literary space. For the discussion on memory, the research draws on Maurice Halbwachs (1990), Michael Pollak (1989), Walter Benjamin (1989; 1994), and Câmara Cascudo (2012), focusing on the category of collective memory in its various aspects. The connection between spaces of memories is discussed based on Aleida Assman (2016), and historical and social phenomena are addressed with the support of Márcio Souza (2019), Ana Maria Daou (2004), Lilia Schwarcz (2018; 2019), and Carlos Alberto Franco da Silva (2019). The investigation revealed that memory expresses fluctuations inherent to the narration of an elastic narrator—drawn by opposing poles and capable of revealing the contradictions and inequalities of the referred social structure. In light of these fluctuations, memory is dialectically tensioned between the official, the subterranean, and the oral tradition, which seems to challenge hegemonic narratives about modernization and the Rubber Boom in the Amazon. Space, fundamental to these memorial configurations, emphasizes the representation of cities and the attempts at escape, real or mythical, by the marginalized—all frustrated by the symbolized reality that reifies the myth and destroys hopes. Ultimately, an inherently decadent modernization, forged by inequalities and violence, becomes evident.