José de Alencar e a escravidão: suas peças teatrais e o pensamento sobre o processo abolicionista

Abstract

José de Alencar was called a slaver for believing that the abolition should not happen immediately, as it was the wish of most abolitionists. Our research investigates the understanding of the Cearence author about the slave regime in Brazil from two of his dramaturgy works – O demônio familiar (1857) and Mãe (1860). Besides these plays, which are the starting point of our study, we use the letters entitled Novas cartas políticas de Erasmo, ao Imperador (1867), for its reading, in comparison with other texts from the author, could provide us with a new perspective of analyses about José de Alencar’s critical thinking. We can affirm that the vision of some researchers about Alencar’s thoughts about slavery is incomplete, thus the necessity of feeling some blanks, having as corpus the Discursos parlamentares de José de Alencar (1977) as well – a work that gathers the political speeches of the Cearence author about the servile element; important works of critics such as Raimundo de Menezes, R. Magalhães Júnior, Raymond Sayers, Décio de Almeida Prado and Luiz Fernando Valente, that address the work of Alencar, as well as the reading of some literary texts that helped us with the critic developed here, among which we have As vítimas-algozes: quadros da escravidão (2010), by Joaquim Manoel de Macedo. Therefore, in the first chapter, we show the way Alencar makes himself present in the Brazilian dramaturgy, approaching a thorny theme for his time: the slavery and the importance of his plays for the progress of emancipation. In the second chapter, we analyze O demônio familiar, which until today arises discussion about being an abolitionist work or not. At last, in the third chapter, we conduct an approach about Mãe, where we highlight the existing relationship between lord and slave and what is the importance of the work for the battle against slavery in the country or for its stay in that time. Thereby, we enlist the points that show the reasons that took the critic to classify José de Alencar as a slaver, as well as the arguments that made some critics see in his works that he encouraged the abolition, but considering the gradual emancipation as the best solution for the society as a whole.