Memorial do Convento: uma análise dramático-narratológica

Abstract

Memorial do Convento is considered one of the main and more complex works of José Saramago. It is a peculiar memory once the recollections are expressed and narrated by Ŗweŗ, and the novel is composed by unusual structures. Memorial do Convento aims to be composed by a collective memory which is dedicated to the simple men responsible for Mafrařs great work. We realize that the remembered object in the novel becomes full of peculiarities as the memory does not belong to individuality. In fact, it assumes a collectivity in which the narrative is a mix of present, past and future. The convent is not only seen as a building but it is also seen by a group which moves through time and space and observes its foundations and present completeness. The treatment given to the object that is being represented and its memory will affect the novelřs structure turning it into a mixture of narrative and drama: in some moments the memory is told according to its distance of time and place, but in other moments it is updated and assumes dramatic features. This research intends to analyze José Saramagořs novel from the perspective established by the dialog between the narrative structures and the dramatic insertions. These are forms of representation which are both cause and consequence of the collective memory in Memorial do Convento because of their relationships with the represented object. When dealing with drama in this work, I will make approaches and comparisons between the novel and the plays written by the same author. Besides that, I will approach this aesthetic and structural stratagem to those used in theater and in epic drama. While the drama struggled against the need of expressing a past time, which is represented by the narrative structures, José Saramago seems to have accepted the challenge of updating a memory by using dramatic structures. In spite of the reverse trajectories, there is the intersection between the didactic goals which theater and drama have assumed with Bertolt Brecht and the need of a social and aesthetic criticism of humanization which is pointed in Memorial do Convento.