Between Acceptance and Denial: The Literary Construction of the Negro as a Model in <i>O Mulato</i>

Abstract

Aluísio Azevedo publishes the novel O mulato in 1881 and inaugurates Naturalism in Brazil (ABREU, 2013, pp. 213; RIBEIRO, 1995, pp. 205). However, Azevedo’s work can be considered doubly foundational, or at least, at a second sphere equally foundational, for it approaches and problematizes the birth of the nation and of an identity which could be called Brazilian. While the author approaches the ethnic question in the final years of the slave system in Brazil, he criticizes and rejects the prejudiced behavior of the people from Maranhão. At the same time, one perceives his own prejudices toward the Afrodescendants. It is, therefore, an ambiguous work: On one side, Azevedo desires to integrate the black population into the nation that was forming during the late nineteenth century. On the other side, his difficulty in recognizing value in the Afro-Brazilian culture is evident. The present article has as its purpose to analyze the image of the Afrodescendant character, starting from the premise that the alterity and identity concepts always arise in a historical and discursive context. Between the lines of this novel, we will thus seek an answer to the ambivalent characterization of the African-American character as a model for the future of the nation.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n43a878