Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: CALEB BENJAMIM MENDES BARBOSA

Contemporary Subjectivity in the Novel "Glória", by Victor Heringer

Key-words:Novel; Form; Irony;Contemporany; Subjetctivity

Theresearch seeks to demonstrate that in Glória (2012), VictorHeringer's novel, there is a double procedure through which werecognize the possibility of apprehending a contemporary subjectivitymode, while expressing it not only thematically, but mainly throughelements formal literary. First, we can characterize thissubjectivity as marked by a malaise that, according to Joel Birman(2014) is found in the regime of the void of existence, and which inthe novel takes shape in what the narrator calls 'desgosto'; and thatis configured by the notions of spectacle (DEBOARD, 1997), narcissism(LASCH, 1983), and the orphanhood of meta-narratives (LYOTARD, 1986).Such subjectivity appears in the novel through the formalarticulation of a hero riddled by tragicity and incommunicability andwhose response to "desgosto" cannot be anything other thanirony. Glória narrates the trajectory of the brothers Alencar Costae Oliveira - formed by Benjamim, a frustrated artist; Daniel, asuccessful bureaucrat; and Abel, a rising preacher - a family whosemembers are destined to die not from accident or illness, but from"desgosto", acute and unpredictable melancholy that goesfrom generation to generation. Thus, as a result, we realize that dueto the redimensionalization of the hero, whose world is no longer hismeasure (LUKACS, 2012), crossed by the incommunicability andinventive irony, Heringer organizes "desgosto" as astructuring feature of his heroes and, therefore, not onlyproblematizes supposed panaceas that gave horizon to the subject, butit brings within it a reflection on language as fragile and impotent.However, Heringer's irony is not just a feature of our time, but Idialogue with a tradition - namely Shandism and Menipee Satire(ROUANET, 2007; SÁ REGO, 1989) - which Heringer does not seek tosatirize, but finds in her. sufficient and capable expression toshape contemporary subjectivity.