The representation of the mediocre (portuguese) citizen in Dulce Maria Cardoso

Abstract

The mediocre (Portuguese) citizen is one who abdicates his own individuality, alienates himself, surrenders to the socioeconomic system and is submissive. Thus, the mediocre (Portuguese) citizen figures, in a section of Dulce Maria Cardoso’s work, a being without a name, without a fixed identity, called “employee”, who are all similar to each other, in order to de-identify their humanity. Our corpus, in turn, is composed of Campo de sangue and Os meus sentimentos, the first two novels published by the contemporary Portuguese writer. In this article, we aim to outline the profile of these so-called “employees”, as well as investigate their presence and function in the corpus. In order to do so, we will base ourselves on O que é a não-pertença e como se dá sua construção em Os meus sentimentos, de Dulce Maria Cardoso, by Gabriela Cristina Borborema Bozzo; Manifesto comunista, by Marx and Engels, Adorno and Freud in “Civilização e alienação: diálogo com Freud e Adorno” (2006), by Danelon and O romance português contemporâneo (1950-2010), by Miguel Real.