The double and the unusual in character’s representation in the short story “A mão perdida na caixa do correio”

Authors

  • Antonia Marly Moura da Silva UERN – Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte. Faculdade de Letras e Artes – Departamento de Letras Vernáculas. Mossoró – RN – Brasil.
  • Francisco Edson Gonçalves Leite UERN – Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras. Pau dos Ferros – RN – Brasil.

Keywords:

Double, Fission, Brandão,

Abstract

Questions related to the identity of self have always drawn the interest and inquietude of scholars in the most varied epistemological fields. Taking this fact as reference, this paper has the purpose of analyzing the configuration which the myth of the double assumes in Ignácio de Loyola Brandão’s short story “A mão perdida na caixa do correio”. The short story presents the difficult task of an identity construction in an unstable world nowadays. The phenomenon of duplicity is represented through a fission operated in the subject and it reflects the subject’s search for the rescue of the self latent potentialities inhibited by the society. In this sense, it’s object of discussion is the crisis of identity experienced by the modern subject, according to which the doubled human being is the sign of a fragmented and unfolded self. In spite of keeping in its essence the symbol of the identity search, the myth of the double is updated in this contemporary Brazilian short story, as a way of adapting itself to the demands of its historical context.

Published

13/04/2017

Issue

Section

Identities: the I and the other in literature