As manifestações do grotesco no universo ficcional de Ana Paula Maia

Abstract

The present work analyzes the manifestations of grotesque aesthetics in the fictional universe developed by the author from Rio de Janeiro, Ana Paula Maia (1977). The corpus selected for the study corresponds to the Saga dos brutos trilogy, composed of the novellas Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos (2009) and O trabalho sujo dos outros (2009) and the novel Carvão animal (2011). The approach is based on the grotesque theories formulated by Victor Hugo (2020), Wolfgang Kayser (2019), Mikhail Bakhtin (2010), among others. In addition, the work relies on the definitions of Aesthetics from the perspective of Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (1999). Four aspects of the grotesque were analyzed: the setting of the plots, the characterization of the bodies, the relation between men and animals and, finally, the particularization of the characters’ psyche. From this study, we hope to understand the role of the grotesque in the construction of the author’s works and to what extent contemporary Brazilian literature dialogues with this aesthetic concept considered, over the centuries, anti-canonical, and how its presence in the current scenario embraces the moment of tension observed in society, providing, in addition, a discussion of the construction of a realistic monstrosity directed to individuals placed on the margins of the economic system.