Belazarte and Ellis, his personal servant: representation of the relationship between classes in the midst of conservative modernization in São Paulo in the short story “Túmulo, tomb, tomb”, by Mário de Andrade

Abstract

The representation of the Sao Paulo outskirts in 1920’s is a central aspect of Os contos de Belazarte, written by Mário de Andrade. The same fate of fairy tales is found in the narratives, but in reverse: instead of destined to happiness, to reward and to restore order and justice, in Belazarte the characters appear to be destined to unhappiness, suffering and injustice. Seen from the São Paulo outskirts, the moral compensation disappears and no comfort is offered to the suffering and the downtrodden. The narrator points out the injustice, recognize it, bother with it, but at the same time, blame the characters, expressing a problematic and contradictory consciousness that oscillates between recognizing the characters as victims, guilty or whatever. The result of this oscillation is a speech constitutively ambivalente and ironic, sometimes sadistic, who has compassion on the same movement that sees suffering as inevitable or, worst, as deserved.