Graciliano Ramos: autobiographical configurations

Abstract

Many critics claim that every literary work has an autobiographical dimension, but in Graciliano Ramos’ literary production the presence of this dimension is patent. Motivated by the fact that some biographical features are present in his works to a greater or lesser degree, we propound a classification of his writings according to the more visible presence of these features or the configuration of the autobiography by the fictional character. In order to do so, we have identified the components that form the autobiographical field and we have analyzed how they are instantiated. We identified in the fictional work of Graciliano Ramos four usages of the autobiography that allowed us to propound the following typology: historical or conventional autobiography in Infância (published in 1945); testimonial autobiography in Memórias do cárcere (published in 1953); fictional autobiography in Angústia (published in 1936) and autobiography of the fictional character in São Bernardo (published in 1934). The analysis of the novels required the reflection on the relations between memory and history, objectivity and subjectivity, confession and testimony, among others. In order to do so, we referred to the analytical approaches of Antonio Candido, Alfredo Bosi, Mikhail Bakhtin, Philippe Lejeune e Giorgy Lukács, among others.