Rubem Fonseca : a escritura como violência ou a palavra como arma

Abstract

This dissertation has as its main goal examine the question of violence and sexuality in contemporary fiction through the aspect of language itself, as a producer and constructor of other similar realities. In order to do it, some Rubem Fonseca s short stories are chosen to be analyzed because they foment the dialogue between the author s fiction and one of the most significant genres of contemporary narrative: the short story itself. First of all, we study the importance of the narrator and its variations until getting the first person narrator, a specific characteristic in Rubem s work, causing violent effects in his fiction. In a second moment we show an aspect of violence in which Rubem establishes his short stories reflecting death not in the sense of a hand-to-hand destruction but as the rising of problems concerning human condition inserted in a complex and repressive society. Later on, we verify the question of commerce violence or market competition and its consequences the contemporary man created by the sensation of discomfort of not being able to have everything society can offer. Finally, we resort to the author s last short story book because of its interesting not to say intriguing focus he gives to a new narrative possibility: first person women.