REMINISCENCES OF A CEARÁ-MIRIM WHO STILL LIVES: ANALYZING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SPACE IN OITEIRO (1958), BY MAGDALENA ANTUNES
Oiteiro; Magdalena Antunes; Space; Ceará-Mirim; Topoanalysis.
Oiteiro: Memoirs of a Landowner's Daughter (1958) recounts the childhood and youth of Magdalena Antunes, who, moving between the urban and rural spaces of Ceará-Mirim, immortalized through her writing an image of the city during the era of the sugar industry’s dominance in the Brazilian Northeast. This research aims to analyze the representation of Ceará-Mirim in Oiteiro, emphasizing the spatial dimension of the work through the lens of Topoanalysis, the theory of spatiality proposed by Borges Filho (2007). The corpus of this qualitative investigation comprises the most iconic sites of the municipality featured in the narrative: the Oiteiro Sugar Mill, the Antunes Manor, the Public Market, and the Mother Church. To support this selection, the study draws on the theoretical contributions of Halbwachs (1990) and Bachelard (1987), who reflect, respectively, on the social and intimate dimensions of spatiality. Moreover, since the spaces in Oiteiro are evoked through memory, the research also engages with studies centered on this category. In this regard, it incorporates the works of Nascimento (2015), Maciel (2013), and Silva (2016), who examine memory within the narrative sphere, as well as Halbwachs (1990), Pollak (1990), and Sarlo (2007), who approach memory as a social construct. Finally, Candido (1993; 2006) is highlighted, whose integrative criticism guides the analysis of the literary text in its inseparable relationship with society.