A metamorfose em “meu tio o iauaretê”: um estudo linguageiro e discursivo sobre as reconfigurações do ser

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the metamorphosis in the narrative “Meu tio o Iauaretê” by João Guimarães Rosa, in order to investigate the instability of the transformation and its effects, both in the text and in the speech of the characters. It was published in 1961, in the “Senhor” magazine and the narrative was rewritten by João Guimarães Rosa, and the new version of the text has become part of the posthumous collection Estas Estórias in 1969. The first analyzed metamorphosis occurs in the words that are part of these texts. To analyze the transformations of language and discursive order, the Differential Comparison (HEIDMANN, 2003, 2010, 2012) was used as method to investigate the changes proposed in draft by Guimarães Rosa, before his death, which were adopted for the book edition. The second transformation takes place with the main character of the narrative, who appears as a man and as a jaguar to a lost man who comes to his house in the middle of the backlands. In order to analyze the prospect of the being in transformation and his interlocutor about the metamorphosis, different philosophical aspects were evoked: we used the historical-philosophical survey of the man made by neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer (2012) to reflect on the interlocutor character, who defined himself as a man; we made approaches with Heidegger’s Dasein (2008) and concepts such as das Man and das geredete (HEIDEGGER, 2003, 2010, 2013), to analyze the process of metamorphosis experienced by the main character. In addition, we also sought to reflect on his understanding of himself as a being in metamorphosis, approaching the course of the main character to the process of building the “corps-sans-organes” (DELEUZE and GUATTARI, 1997b). In order to carry out a differential comparative study between two achievements of the same narrative, we need to build our comparable from the relationship between the Rosa’s narrative and the literally works which also feature characters who metamorphose themselves. We selected four texts for dialogue with Rosa's narrative: the episode of Aracne and Minerva, by Ovidio (MET VI 1-145), the Kafka novel A metamorfose (KAFKA, 1986), the booklet A moça que virou cadela, by Antonio Lucena (2004) and the episode “Red-Handed” (2011) from the television series Once upon a time, by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. The choice of narratives which fall in different contexts highlights the non-hierarchical nature of Differential Comparison and enables reflection on the changing beings from the contextual features identified in the discourse of metamorphosed characters. The study of the narrative “Meu tio o Iauaretê” highlights the view that the physical transformation of the character does not establish, by itself, the abandonment of the impersonal way, and it does not always dissolve the boundaries between species. The Rosa's metamorphosis is unstable, it shows a character that does not undergo transformation, but enjoys it consciously and can erase the limits between the man and the jaguar as to compose a being who believes he is able to use, in an aforethought way, his devenir-animal (DELEUZE and GUATTARI, 2003) in moments of human interaction. Thus, we consider that Rosa's narrative goes beyond the transformation that is identifiable in the eyes of the common man, he abandons the definitive states and explores the Dasein (HEIDEGGER, 2008), under the unique perspective of the being in metamorphosis.