Tensions between reason, nature and myth in Centauro, by José Saramago

Abstract

José Saramago (1984), in Objeto quase, outlines in an allegorical way the themes to which he refers. The short story chosen for the analysis, "Centauro", will be approached in two aspects: first, the half-animal, half-human condition of the mythical being will serve as a symbol of the human condition itself, divided between the civilizing sphere constructed by the species and the circumscription inherent to the natural, savage world, in which the tension between the Freudian drives of life and death will be addressed, Eros and Thanatos; second, the relationship between society and the centaur, examining the issue from a metaphorical perspective, referring to the disaggregation of the human being from the natural world from myths and, subsequently, the abandonment of myths towards the primacy of rationality.