University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series (Jun 2015)
‘Let the Children Come to Me; Do Not Hinder Them, For to Such Belongs the Kingdom of God’ – Portuguese Childhood Religiosity and Its Portrayal in Valter Hugo Mãe’s O Nosso Reino
Abstract
Religion has always been a huge factor of Portuguese national identity and was strongly emphasised and enforced as essential to it under the Estado Novo (1933-1974). However the protagonist of Valter Hugo Mãe’s O nosso reino (2004), even at the early age of eight, or perhaps because of it, questions the apparent omnipotence of the Church and the infallibility of religion. His distrust of Church officials demonstrates how his innocence allows him to see through the corruption afflicting the Portuguese Church. His faith appears to be pure and untouched by societal expectations, which apparently means that he can faithfully interpret God’s message, and so is perceived to be a type of angel by those around him, forcing him to confront what Freud terms his “primary narcissism”. At other times he is also interpreted as some kind of demonic force, which certainly demonstrates a restrictive binary identity that superficially appears to be emblematic of religious belief. His decision to become a saint means that he can be seen to represent Erik Erikson’s homo religious, who is “always older, or in early years suddenly becomes older, than his playmates or even his parents and teachers and focuses in a precocious way on what it takes others a lifetime to gain a mere inkling of: the questions of how to escape corruption in living and how in death to give meaning to life” (Erikson 261). This paper will examine how Valter Hugo Mãe is portraying the instability of definitive religious categories within Portuguese society, particularly when the beliefs that shape those categories are manipulated according to the political desires of the State and their allies within the Church.
