O passado revisitado em Memórias de um velho, de Clodoaldo Freitas

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the process of reminscence of the elderly character from the novel "Memórias de um Velho" (2008), by the writer Clodoaldo Freitas. In order to achieve this, we propose to question the narrator's position in the recapture of the past, in order to understand how the alternation between remembering and forgetting occurs. Emilio, the first-person narrator, tells his recollections from childhood until the moment in which you find yourself in old age, resignified through his reflections on consecutive tragedies, losses and gains of wealth, intense love affairs, changes of character, harsh criticisms of habits, abrupt changes in the events of his life trajectory. Is relevant to discussion about how the protagonist associates personal memories with social, political and historical events that contextualize the story, also about the time space of the narrative, and how the process of alternation between remembering and forgetting occurs. Discussions on memory will be based on the theories of Bergson (1999), Le Goff (1990), Bachelard (2007), Bosi (1994) and Sarlo (2007); the dialectic between individual and collective memory will be based on Halbwachs (2006) and Pollak (1989); to study the theme of old age we use the theoretical outline made by Pinho (2011) and Bosi (1994); and Ricouer (2007) to discuss on remembering and forgetting. From this study, we can corroborate that the elderly have the social function to remember. The old man's memory happens in the process of alternating memories of the past associated with the present, resignifying them according to his life experiences, however in the novel in question that he keeps to himself only what is relevant.