Images and memory of 1930s Brazil in autobiographical writings : Memórias do cárcere (1953) by Graciliano Ramos and Brazil, land of the future (1941) by Stefan Zweig

Abstract

This thesis examines two distinct representations of the Vargas's regime in Brazil in the 1930s and how they reveal writers' different positions in politics, history, and ideology. By applying theories from autobiographical studies and memory studies, I delve into the writers' different modes of remembering shaped by their subjectivities and unique sociohistorical backgrounds. This research shows the selected autobiographical writing's interwoven relation to larger sociohistorical contexts. The corpus comprises two autobiographical writings: Memórias do Cárcere (Prison Memoirs; 1953) by the Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos and Brazil, Land of the Future (Brasilien, Ein Land der Zukunft; 1941) by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Ramos, a victim of Vargas's dictatorship, after keeping silent for ten years, finally faced his prison memories and began his narration of atrocity and dehumanization in the prison, during which he fought with his trauma and forgetfulness. Investigating from the perspectives of Holocaust and autobiographical writings, this study links the Brazilian prison with the Nazi concentration camps and illustrates the different mechanisms that Ramos adopted to build a reliable memoir. As for Zweig, writing as an Austrian refugee who fled from Nazi Germany to Vargas's Brazil, his distressing experience in Europe inevitably impacts the way he depicts Brazil. Eventually, he demonstrates a country with racial harmony and a land where he finds hope for all human beings. By paying attention to Zweig's liminality imprinted in his experience and writing and the feminized Brazilian landscape represented in his book, I intend to gain an insightful glimpse into the author's physical and mental conditions under the Vargas regime. The comparative analysis facilitates the transnational and transcultural dialogue and interaction of the two works, demonstrating a more complete portrayal of the Vargas regime and placing the study of this regime in a broader context.