Realistic testimony from absurd: reading Memórias do Cárcere by Graciliano Ramos

Abstract

In this article, we analyze Memórias do Cárcere by Graciliano Ramos, pointing out how his testimony about the dictatorship of the Estado Novo builds the improbable through realistic features. Accordingly, we aim to discuss how the absurd of reality (whether in blind authoritarianism, or in unexpected humanism) is treated from the point of view of an author / narrator so committed to the truth about their experience and that of other persons under the invisibility prisons. Based on the discussion about realism, especially using the work of Adorno and Lukács, we will establish parallels with the work of Franz Kafka, more specifically O Processo, showing the different ways used by fiction and testimony to reveal the absurd of human life, subject to arbitrariness of a world that is little understood.