The role inversion in the novel A Selva by Ferreira de Castro in a post-colonial perspective

Abstract

This work is a reading of the novel A Selva, by the Portuguese writer Ferreira de Castro, in a post- colonial perspective. Thus, we observe the look of an European on the colonized (Brazilians), by reversing the roles of the characters Alberto, a Portuguese on the colonized position, and Juca Tristao, as a Brazilian colonizer. We hold our discussions with theorists’ approaches concerned with the study about the Other (Said 2007, Gondim 2007, Pratt 1999). We also dialogue with the works of Cunha (2006) reporting and denouncing the human operating system in the Amazonian rubber plantations; of Emery (1999) about the novel A Selva, and of Tocantins (1999) that discusses about the writer Ferreira de Castro. We observed that the novel is a social denunciation of the exploratory system in the Amazonian rubber plantations of the early twentieth century, as well as spreads out the region. Finally, this study points out the resistance of an European character to be considered as the Other.

Keywords

• A Selva
• Amazônia
• seringueiros
• colonizador
• colonizado