iracema, an icon of romantic Indianism, had its first publication in 1865 and remains today among the main Brazilian literary works. Authored by José de Alencar, whose artistic project involved the consolidation of a national culture, iracema is foundation narrative, that is, its main thematic axis is about the creation of a cultural identity, a text that is oriented towards represent the origin of Brazilian nationality.
It is through the love bond between the Indian Iracema, representative of the native Amerindian people, and the Portuguese Martim, colonizer Portuguese from the 16th century, that José de Alencar builds a narrative that goes back to the genesis of the motherland Brazilian: this race meeting would have generated the Brazilian people.
Summary
The story begins when martim, Portuguese responsible for defending the Brazilian territory from other European invaders,
get lost in the forest, in a location that today corresponds to the coast of Ceará. Iracema, a tabajara Indian who was then resting among the trees, is startled by the arrival of the stranger, and shoots an arrow at Martim. He doesn't react to aggression from being shot by a woman, and Iracema understands that he hurt an innocent.In peace pact, Iracema takes the wounded foreigner to his village and to his father, Araquém, the tribe's shaman. Martim is received with great hospitality, but his arrival does not please everyone: Irapuã, a Tabajara warrior in love with Iracema, is the first to be displeased.
During your stay in the village, Iracema and Martim approach and blooms, between the two, strong attraction. However, Iracema has an important role in the tribe: she is a virgin consecrated to Tupã, keeper of the secret of the jurema, a sacred liquor, which led the Tabajara Indians to ecstasy.
Between festivities and battles with other tribes — among them, the pitiguaras, allies of Martim — Iracema and the Portuguese foreigner become lovingly involved, and India breaks the vow of chastity, which means a death sentence. Martim, in turn, is also persecuted: Irapuã and his men want to drink his blood. The alliance with the pitiguaras makes him an even more unwanted enemy.
Passionate, Iracema and Martim need to flee the tabajara village before the tribe realizes that the virgin has broken the vow of chastity. They join Poti, a Pitiguara Indian, whom Martim treated like a brother. When the tabajaras realize the escape, they set off in pursuit of the lovers led by Irapuã and Caiubi, Iracema's brother.
They end up finding the Pitiguara tribe, and a bloody battle is fought. Caiubi and Irapuã violently attack Martin, and Iracema fiercely advances against the two, seriously wounding them. Anticipating defeat, the Tabajara tribe retreats.
The couple then takes refuge on a deserted beach, where Martim builds a hut. Iracema spends a lot of time alone while the loved one checks his back, in expeditions ordered by the Portuguese government. Martim is constantly taken by melancholy and nostalgia for his homeland, which saddens Iracema, who starts to think that his death would be, for him, a liberation.
not long after, Iracema discovers herself pregnant, but Martim needs to leave to defend, together with Poti, the Pitiguara tribe, which is under attack. iracema she ends up having the child alone, and baptizes the child Moacir, the one born of his suffering. Wounded by childbirth and profound sadness, Iracema's milk dries up; Martim arrives just in time for Iracema to give him the child and dies shortly thereafter.
Also access: Ultraromanticism: the romantic generation of sentimental exaltation
Analysis of the work
written in third person, O storyteller é omniscient. The linguistic work promoted by Alencar makes the work be situated in the genre of poetic prose, as the author privileges aspects related to the form of poetry, such as rhythm, alliteration and the abundant use of metaphors, comparisons and periphrases.
There is, according to Antonio Candido, a verbal melody that drives the novel, made of descriptions full of images and colors that help in the fusion of the story with the elements of nature, a typically romantic characteristic.
THE landscape is an important element for the narrative: the geographic space in which it is located are the wild forests of the Ceará coast. There is a local color enhancement through the emphasis on the beauty of the landscapes described, typical nationalist resource of the first phase of the romanticism. Metaphors and comparisons highlight the paradisiacal Brazilian lands.
Iracema represents the indigenous submissive to european culture, and his name is an anagram for America. Martim, in turn, represents the colonizer and conqueror warrior. His name is associated with Mars, the Greco-Roman god of war. The union between the two represents the legend of the creation of Ceará, because Iracema was buried in the shade of a coconut tree in which the jandaia, her pet bird, sang in mourning for her death. Ceará means “corner of the jandaia”.
It is also from the union between the couple that Moacir is born, whose name means "son of suffering", representing the first cearense and the genesis of Brazilian nationality, the result of the link between the colonizer and the indigenous.
See too: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas: analysis of the starting point of realism
Characters
- Iracema, tabajara Indian, keeper of the secret of the jurema, a hallucinogenic plant;
- Martim, Portuguese colonizer, based on Martim Soares Moreno, the first Portuguese colonizer of Ceará;
- Araquém, tabajara shaman and father of Iracema;
- Caubi, tabajara warrior and brother of Iracema;
- Irapuã, chief of the tabajaras, Martim's main enemy;
- Andira, old warrior, brother of Araquém;
- Poti, Potiguara warrior and ally of Martim;
- Jacaúna, chief of the potiguaras;
- Batuirité, old sage, grandfather of Poti;
- Moacir, son of Iracema and Martim;
- Japi, Martim's dog.
Historical context
Written in the final years of first generation of Brazilian romanticism, iracema is work inspired by strong nationalism, which characterizes these romantic productions. At the time, Brazil was a newly independent nation from Portugal, a fact that directed artists of different genres to think and build an idea of cultural identity, of national origin, what does it mean be brazilian.
The narrative of iracema it takes place in the 17th century (between 1603 and 1611), dating back to the years of the arrival of the Portuguese to the South American continent. However, it is a idealization of the Indian figure, as well as the traumatic colonial process. The Portuguese invasion did not arouse great passions of the original peoples for European men, as portrayed in the narrative. On the contrary: the Portuguese brought with them diseases, territorial wars, slavery and rape of indigenous people, in addition to the great genocide of the populations that inhabited the Brazilian territory.
José de Alencar
Playwright, novelist, journalist, critic and also politician, José Martiniano de Alencar was born in Messejana (CE), on May 1st, 1829. Son of a senator from empire, moved to Rio de Janeiro as a child, having also lived in São Paulo, where he attended the Faculty of Law at Largo São Francisco, and in Pernambuco, where he completed his course at the Faculty of Law of Olinda.
Alencar was an editor at the newspaper Rio Diary, an office he abandoned to dedicate himself to politics: there were four legislatures in a row, acting as deputy of Ceará for the Conservative Party. It was also one of the greatest representatives of Brazilian romanticism, being part of the 1st generation of romantic authors, linked to Indianism and nationalism, concerned mainly with the consolidation of an authentically Brazilian culture.
He wrote Indianist, urban, historical and regionalist novels. He also produced works for the theater and exalted political texts, in which he criticized the figure of the emperor and was about foreign policy, diplomacy, and a controversial apology for work slave.
Read too: Gonçalves Dias, the Indian poet
Film
iracema was adapted for film in 1979, under the title of Iracema, the virgin of honey lips. Directed by Carlos Coimbra, also author of the screenplay, the film seeks to faithfully follow the chronological order of the novel, as well as to reproduce the paradisiacal landscapes of the 16th century described by Alencar.
However, according to the critics, film production ended up eroticize the figure of Iracema and suppressing his voice in moments of tension in which, in the novel, the character spoke out.
Marcelo Vieira and Aline Soares, in a comparative study between the book and the film, point to a Iracema's character makeover, which, in the film adaptation, lost the protagonism in scenes in which he positions himself in front of male characters. This is the case, for example, when Iracema uses his bow and arrow to defend Martim, attacked by Caiubi and Irapuã. In the book, the domain of the scene is with Iracema, whose block prevents the Indian from getting closer; in the film, the bow and arrow is replaced by a spear and Iracema is disarmed by Irapuã, something that does not occur in the novel.
There is, above all, a weakening of Iracema's character, which is designed along the lines of the pornochanchada cinema, in force at the time of production. the character becomes submissive and passive, “colonized”, and the filming was oriented towards the eroticization of Iracema's nude body.
by Luiza Brandino
Literature teacher