Maíra, de Darcy Ribeiro: nas linhas da ficção, uma outra história do Brasil

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the way the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro questions issues related to the indigenous identity and its historic representation in Brazil, considering the conception of a divergent and pluridiscursive narrative. Concerning that, the analytical object is the work Maíra, the author‘s debut novel, since it is relevant to the deconstruction of the indigenous as a good savage concept, presenting the importance of the indigenous culture itself and not only relating it to the construction of the Brazilian culture. Commencing by the inconsistences of the official history, it is possible to listen to forgotten and silenced voices. In the novel, the comparison between an omitted past appropriation and a differing present is clear. Having this point of view the purpose was initially to demonstrate not only the importance of relating Literature and History in a contemporary context, but also how literature can reconstruct and resignify historical events, in a way that such rereading reacquires and presents a cultural tradition which is stereotyped by the Eurocentric ideology. Furthermore, in the novel, Darcy Ribeiro discusses issues related to the indigenous people‘s culture and identity, represented by the mairuns, developing an analytical thinking about identity through specificity, heterogeneity, and difference, forasmuch as the concept of national identity does not correspond to the fragmentation and decentralization of the individual and cultures.