Abstract
RESUMONo romance Angústia, de Graciliano Ramos, a gradual dissolução psíquica de Luís da Silva tem uma relação intrínseca com as condições da vida urbana na modernidade, sendo a cidade referida ou semantizada ora como Babel, o caos urbano original, ora como Babilônia, a urbs corrompida pelo vício. Além disso, a recorrência de metáforas como a dos ratos (significando a degradação da vida, a corrupção da sexualidade ou o caráter predatório do materialismo burguês) e a ênfase no estado de angústia revelam as interlocuções com conceitos filosóficos/psicológicos da Angst, tais como expressos em Freud, Kierkegaard e Heidegger.
Highlights
In Graciliano Ramos' novel Anguish1, the gradual psychical dissolution of the main character, Luiz da Silva, has a close relationship to the conditions of modern urban life
Anguish (1946),3 the third novel by Graciliano Ramos, is the novel most frequently analyzed from the psychological perspective: The introspective feature of the narrative – whose suffocating density expresses the very condition present in the title, makes the narrator/protagonist a symbol of a Being who is crushed by the tortuous meanderings of madness
In a well-known essay on the European idea of the city, historian Carl Schorske pointed out that, in the course between the Enlightenment and the modernity, there was a progressive devaluation of the city as a concept, both in the political-social thought, and in arts and literature, which was specially expressed in biblical metaphors
Summary
In a well-known essay on the European idea of the city, historian Carl Schorske pointed out that, in the course between the Enlightenment and the modernity, there was a progressive devaluation of the city as a concept, both in the political-social thought, and in arts and literature, which was specially expressed in biblical metaphors. Afterwards silence, fatigue, the light of morning, sleep; the wall would separate us (A, p.111).33 From this perspective, Luiz da Silva's anguish is similar to Freud's Angst, which is related to castration anxiety, to defense mechanisms (fight/retreat), and to the repression of the sexual instinct. It was the focus of at least four of his most famous writings, and it was the sub-theme in several others In his early texts, especially in the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (1916-17), Freud relates anxiety to repressed sex, the “unconsummated excitation – that is, people in whom violent sexual excitations meet with no sufficient discharge, cannot be brought to a satisfying conclusion” (SMITH, 2014, p.3448).. A resident of the obs-scene of the city, an underground creature, is the most recurrent metaphor in Anguish: the rat
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