Warm were the nights or voyage around Cape Verde with Dina Salústio

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the symbolism in the book Mornas eram as noites (Warm were the nights), by Cape-Verdean writer Dina Sa­lústio, and propose a thematic typology to the short stories, relating it to the topic of voyage. In the thirty-five narratives, we note that are common themes in some of them, such as: leaving and returning; the female condi­tion; family relations; poverty and necessity; memory; (domestic and so­cial) violence. In the same way, we perceived that are differentiated female characters, representing a broad view of all social classes and different ages. Most of the stories are narrated in the first person, which makes the reader closer to the narrator and functions as a call for an accomplice to the reader by the narrator. We also observed that the night appears in many plots as a symbol of transformation, as seen in the subtitle of the work: “... De como elas se entregam aos dias” (Of how they deliver themselves to the days. Likewise, we can see the dubiety in the subtitle that can refer not only to the nights (in the title) but also to the female characters presented in the stories.

Keywords

• Conto. Simbolismo. Viagem.