City and violence in the Cerrado Goiano: a reading of Herança de Sangue, by Ivan Sant’Anna

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to read the novel Herança de sangue: um faroeste brasileiro (2012), by Ivan Sant’Anna, and it is divided into two main sections: in the first, we discuss urban space as a text
whose meanings are complex and intricate, and how this space is shaped in the novel, as it is entangled with the violence that shapes human and social interactions; in the second, we undertake a reading of the ways in which these interactions are worked out in the narrative context of Herança de sangue. To this end, we resort to the theoretical and critical support of scholars whose works deal with both urban history (BARTHES, 1987; CALVINO, 1990; GOMES, 1994), as well as about violence (CAMPOS, 1987; OLIVEIRA,
2012; SILVA, 2014). Based on the category of violence, the constituent element of the focused narrative, we seek to investigate how it is established as an intrinsic element, affecting the text at the same time in its content and form, and also seeking to show that there is, in the novel the crystallization of violent episodes, based on the aegis of cruelty and intolerance, associated with the chronicle
of the history of the city of Catalão, Goiás.