O espaço em Terra de Caruaru: uma topoanálise dos principais ambientes da obra de José Condé

Abstract

This paper aims mainly to analyze the literary space construction and its implications for the plot development and the characters formation in the novel Terra de Caruaru, by José Condé, author from Caruaru. This narrative, published for the first time in 1960, represents a composition of its author’s remembrances, when he recovers, portrays, invents, and reinvents the development process of his childhood time Caruaru in the 1920s. The city set earlier as a farm undergoes typical changes of modernity, represented by the coming of the industry that makes appear the first automobiles, the trade that moves the local economy, the building of big houses, squares, churches, bridges, theatre, among other spaces that provide urbanization and other important renovations and innovations in cultural and phenomenological manifestations of the people from that region. Thus, the novel presents, among other things, the importance of the space to forming the characters and its meanings effects. As theoretical reference, it dialogues to scholars of geography, topology and, above all, literary space, among whom stand out Milton Santos (2009), Raymond Williams (2011), Bachelard (1978), Borges Filho (2007; 2009), and others. These scholars contributed when offering concepts about rural and urban, scenery and nature, environment and landscape, toponymy, topophilia and so on. The methodology pervades since a presentation of the novel and its relation to spatial and topoanalytical theories until a topoanalysis of the main places represented in the narrative, such as the farm, the fair, the bar, the cemetery, the theatre, the wilderness etc. The results showed that, in this novel, the focus is not in any character, but in the own city representation that, with its macro and micro-spaces, allows being pointed out as the real protagonist. Besides that, it was also noticed the reciprocal influence between subjects and space, focusing on how the individuals can be affected by surrounding space. Thus, this study not only analyzes the literary space in the novel, but discusses its effects and influences in the characters’ behavior and social position.