O funcionário público em Lima Barreto e Cyro dos Anjos

Abstract

The text below compares, focusing the public employee, three characters: Augusto Machado, Gonzaga de Sá and Belmiro. The first two have been created by the writer Lima Barreto (1881 - 1922) and appear in Vida e Morte de M. J. Gonzaga de Sá, published in 1919. The third is the protagonist of Cyro dos Anjos’s (1906 – 1994) best-known novel, O Amanuense Belmiro (1937). This comparison is part of the master's research that examines the distance between the pure type of bureaucracy as described by Max Weber (1864 - 1920), the Brazilian public administration and the work of these two authors. The research endeavors to understand how the then prevailing patrimonialism is portrayed by them as well as the reasons for the difficulty of abandoning it. The research also examines the works Bagatelas, Coisas do Reino do Jambon and Os Bruzundangas, by Lima Barreto, published posthumously in 1923, 1953 and 1923, respectively, and A Menina do Sobrado (1979), by Cyro dos Anjos. The following text, however, turns to the literary universe of the two novels first mentioned in this Abstract, finding the predominance of patrimonial relations in the bureaucratic middle where the three characters (who are all public employees) live. It then attempts to understand how the three characters react to it, noticing a considerable difference there. Finally, the conclusions from this analysis allows the paper’s writer to revisit the question of consciously acting in the world, or, in other words, the importance of thinking and expressing one’s opinions on historical, social and political events of our time.