Vento, memória e sinestesia nos contos de Aníbal Machado

Abstract

This Master's Degree dissertation in Literature aims at studying aspects related to involuntary memory and synesthesias included in short stories written by Aníbal Machado (1894-1964) from Minas Gerais, especially in these narratives: “O iniciado do vento” [“The wind’s initiated”]; “Viagem aos seios de Duília” [“Journey to Duília’s breasts”]; “A morte da porta-estandarte” [“The flagship’s death”]; "O piano" [“The piano”]; “O ascensorista” [“The elevator’s operator”]; and “O desfile dos chapéus” [“The hats parade”]. In this perspective, the frequent incidence of the wind and other memory manifestations of the senses in the short stories mentioned above will be analyzed based on the idea of involuntary memory accesses in the novel A la recherche du temps perdu [In search of lost time], by the French writer Marcel Proust. The definition of autobiography proposed by LEJEUNE (2008), as well as his theory of “autobiographical pact” is considered in order to understand better the difference between the memory as genre and its presence as a content on plots of Aníbal Machado's texts. The short story theory is discussed according to the assumptions of GOTLIB (1985); CORTÁZAR (2006); BOSI (1974); and MOISÉS (2006), among others; and the distinctions and convergences concerning to factual and fictional narrative in COSSON (2001). In the selected texts for investigation, it is possible to verify stories related to recurrent evocations of the past, which occurred similarly in Proust, involuntarily, and were activated by reminiscences associated to the “memory of the senses”, named as synesthesias. Therefore, Aníbal Machado's plots constantly evoke sensorial features of the memory of his narrators and/or of significant characters in his narratives, as we expect to demonstrate.