A Paródia e a ironia nas obras de José Saramago: crítica e dessacralização

Abstract

A reference in contemporary Portuguese narrative and awarded by prizes such as Camões (1995) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1998), José Saramago (1922 - 2010) brings in his works criticisms to several subjects, such as the Christian religion, abuse of power, misogyny, among many others. Given the context in which the decline in prestige to religion is manifested in artistic and literary creations, Saramago elaborates his critique of the Christian religion and the figure of God using irony, writing O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (1991) and Caim (2009), parodies of the Holy Bible that, configured as formation novels, retell the history of sacred texts in an ironic and humanized way, which results in the desacralization of the characters in the canonical text. Such desacralization has a critical content, which, accompanied by irony, is a fundamental element of parody, which in Caim causes laughter and questioning about humanitarian issues and in O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo, causes profound reflection not only about religion, but also also of the concerns of the human soul. Thus, this work seeks to show the process of humanization and desacralization of biblical characters, as well as the elevation of humanity in detriment of the divine and the sacred, which is manifested through parody. To this end, the concepts of parody and irony based on Linda Hutcheon (1985) and Beth Brait (2009) are used, as well as the concept of Bildungsroman (not in an in-depth way), by Morgenstern (1820). The concept of formation novel (Bildungsroman) becomes important in order to understand the transformation of the protagonist characters, which leads the reader to critical thinking about the divine figure eternalized by Christian culture.