Utopia from the Inside Out: Metamorphosis of the Amazonian environment in the works by Franklin Távora, Euclides da Cunha e Alberto Rangel

Abstract

This paper examines texts written by three Brazilian authors who, in contact with Amazonia, considered its future and the concrete possibilities of its transformation into a dynamic economy, politically integrated into Brazilian community. Franklin Tavora, writing in 1876, envisioned a future in which Amazonian scene would be converted into an Industrial Revolution landscape. In the first decade of the XXth century, Euclides da Cunha imagined the region's progress driven by State investment in transportation infrastructure, inserting Amazonia in a national project, through the distribution of population and constant State action. Alberto Rangel, at the same time, maintains dubious attitude towards the region, in valuing the uniqueness of Amazonian nature and the obstacles it would present to regular human occupation. His view is divided between messianism, envisioning in it the future of mankind, and pessimism, reminding the chronic frustration of the projects designed to occupy it. Keywords: Modernization; Literature; Amazonia; Brazilian Social Thought.