The Descriptive of the Carnival and the "Character Effect" in A Morte da Porta-Estandarte, by Aníbal Machado

Abstract

Any description seems to draw the reader's attention to the stylistic effects of the verbal coverage of the text itself. Most often, it appears as taxonomy, as the declination of a latent paradigm of words. And the most convenient way to naturalize the insertion of a descriptive in a statement is to delegate the declination of this paradigm to a person who will assume by his looks, this same declension. It is thus that the choice of the object to be described becomes a view, a scene, a picture. However, in A Morte da Porta-Estandarte, by Aníbal Machado, at first sight, the description is the simple local focal point of a carnival lexicon. In this sense movements, sounds, colors, physical and psychological impressions mix together, creating a sythethesic "vocabulary effect" that recreates the atmosphere of the warm, cheerful and noisy days of the carnival of a former Rio. It is in this specific context that the narrative of the crime of passion summarized by the title of the tale takes place.