Construction and Destruction in Macunaima

Abstract

M uch of the energy of the cornerstone text of Brazilian Modernism, Mario de Andrade's Macunaima, stems from the tension between the opposing forces of construction and destruction which shape the work. While, on one hand, the text itself may have resulted from a careful laying out of morphological, syntactical, and semantical building blocks, the resulting fiction, on the other hand, seems to portray-as the her6i sem nenhum cariter finds out as he roams city and junglea world ruled by dissociation and destruction. However, for all the appeal a connection between linguistic elements and constructive forces may have, the complex interplay of construction and destruction in Andrade's work precludes the establishment of simplistic oppositions. At issue here is not the separation of two opposing forces in perfectly demarcated areas but a better understanding of the interaction between constructive and destructive elements in the linguistic as well as in the thematic spheres of Macunaima. To achieve that goal, one must initially perform a careful examination of both forces at the linguistic level, and then attempt to comprehend how the thematic foci reflect that central opposition. On the morphological level, expansion in Macunaima is achieved by affixation for the most part by suffixes indicative of number, size, and intensity. Number-related suffixation appears in collective nouns, and the most used suffixes, in decreasing frequency,' are -ADA (as, for example, in mosquitada, 18, passarinhada, 30, filharada, 51, and paulistanada, 117), -AL (as in milharal, 17, and bananal, 169), -IA (as in bicharia, 50), -AGEM (as in criadagem, 128), and -AMA (as in gentama, 122). Size-designating suffixation appears in augmentatives, and by far the most frequent suffixes here are -AO (as in dedao, 13, ratao, 17, brilhantao, 136, minhocao, 182, lagoao, 212), and its feminine (as in filhona, 132) and plural (as in olh6es, 38) forms; much less frequent are -EU (as in fogar6u, 17), -AN(A (as in comilanga, 76), -ADA (as in gusparada, 13), and the Tupi -AQU (as in folha-agu, 169) and -GUAQU (as in navio-guagu, 154). The most frequent intensity-indicating suffixation is that of -ISSIMO/A/S, the absoluto sint6tico, the form which, according to Matos, possibilita ao usuhrio do portuguAs a expressao do mais elevado grau de intensificagao (64). Good examples are branquissima, zangadissimo, and finissimos (51, 125, 98). A less frequent indicator of the superlative is ERRIMO/A/S, as in tremend6rrima (81). Augmentative suffixes can also indicate intensity, as in gritaria, chuvarada, calorao, barulhao, bonitao, and gordanchona (144, 148, 213, 168, 90, 180). Likewise, and rather interestingly, as Cavalcanti Proenga points out, one should note that embora desin6ncia de diminutivo, -INHO/A forma o superlativo de adv6rbios e adjetivos (84), as in safadinhos, 18, cheinha, 85, carregadinha, 111, rentinho, 146, and devagarinho, 157. Intensity is also morphologically expressed by internal repetition, mostly in gerundives, as in sobessubindo, cantacantando, pendependendo, and piscapiscando (40, 30, 74, 114), but also in verbals, as in boleboliu, and mexiamexia (221, 74). Morphological expansion is also obtained by affixation which does not serve to indicate number, size, or intensity. Prothesis, for example, is a frequent device, as in avoando, amontou, assoprou, and assentada (10,