Ruínas de uma casa assassinada: a poética do Mal de Lúcio Cardoso

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the theme of Evil in the novel Chronic of the murdered house (1959), by Lúcio Cardoso, considering the presence of the discourse forged by the Christian tradition to interdict and curb desire, nullifying any path directed to pleasure and knowledge of oneself. Although castrating, this discourse does not extinguish the flaming flame of desire, on the contrary, it becomes the mainstay for the germination of the seed of rebellion, which generates characters who are transgressors of moral and religious precepts. Soon, the dissatisfied human condition is verified this is the essential support for the spread of Evil. In the fiction in question, the interdiction of relationships, conflicting situations, the tragic ruling of the fate of the characters and the pulsions of life and death generate creatures affected by nonconformity and revolt, lacking in evasion in its multiple forms: abandonment of the home, alcoholism, madness and death. All of these themes, circumscribed by the agonizing environment of the Meneses’ Chácara, in a continuous process of confinement and demonization, become relevant for listening to the conduct of members of an aristocratic family in the south of Minas Gerais, which lives in a permanent stage of emotional crisis, in which moral decline and financial ruin are glimpsed. It started with the reading and annotation of the theoretical texts referring to the various studies on Evil and the bibliographic review on the Chronicle of the murdered house and its author. Finally, comparing the existing material, it is shown that the discourse about Evil takes on anti dogmatic features in the cardosian novel.