Identidades afrodescendentes em vencidos e degenerados, de Nascimento Moraes

Abstract

This dissertation presents a study of the novel-chronicle Vencidos e degenerados, by the Afro-Maranhão author Nascimento Moraes, it was published in 1915 and was considered a text of fundamental importance, mainly because, in part, it is a testimonial record of episodes related to the day when occurred the Abolition of slavery in Brazil. The main objective of this paper is the study of the construction of Afro-descendant identities based on the memory and the experiences of the black characters of the novel. Here, some discussions are presented on the concepts of cultural identity, traversing several paths that revolve around the concepts of identity. It focuses on the belonging and self-recognition of Afro-Brazilian Literature, in view of the voices, authors, works and peculiarities of this Literature, whose the writing affirms the identity of the Afrodescendant. The bibliographical research emerges with the reflections coming from Cultural Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Afro-Brazilian Literature and History. The echoes of Blackness in Nascimento Moraes are marked by the militancy of the author in defense of the black people, through the journalistic writings, the episodes in the novel, in the story “A preta Benedita” and in the chronicle “São Luís pitoresca”, these two narratives have been inserted in the text because they present peculiar aspects of Blackness. The investigation allows us to recall the day of the Abolition of slavery, through memory and the relation that it maintains with the identity, propitiating to map places, between-places and nonplaces of Afrodescendence in the work, as well as the denunciation against racial prejudice and the reaffirmation of the black people‟s role in society.