The deterritorialization of “the self ” in Caio Fernando Abreu’s short stories

Abstract

Subjectivity in Caio Fernando Abreu’s fiction should not be apprehended in the light of the Cartesian Cogito because it expresses a subjective experience as well as specific subjectivation which do not refer to a personal self, rather, it relates to the way a given set of power relation produces the curvature. Being so, the Deleuzian concept of curve is a relevant tool to understand the fictional, subjective experience of the writer’s work. In his artistic production, the classic image of the universal subject is replaced for the thought-event idea, where the exterior part is inseparable from its interior one and the movement processed in the author’s short stories includes the interposition of the inside and the outside; therefore, such procedure can be understood as one which goes against the State apparatus. In order to understand the writer’s artistic production as a war machine, I intend to analyze some of his short stories where the characters are similar to those visionary ones as pointed by Deleuze and Guattari: they are aware of the intolerable within a situation and open up a new field of possibilities.