Race subalternity in Torto arado

From silence to resistance

Abstract

In this paper we analyze how the process of  awareness increasing related to the condition of subalternity at the racial level happens in Torto arado (2019), by Itamar Vieira Junior. This process can be apprehended from the actions of the characters, who start to assume an active posture in the face of the traditional exploitation structure to which they are subjected. From the episodes presented by the narrators of the novel, three black women who tell their own story and that of the group they integrate, we identify, describe and interpret events that, at first, signal a stage of submission of the characters, and that, in a second moment, suggest a range of awareness regarding their subordinate condition. Our analytical propositions are based on Gayatri Spivak's (2010) considerations on the concept of subalternity; Proença Filho (2004), about the trajectory of blacks in Brazilian literature; Dalcastagnè (2008), about race relations in contemporary Brazilian literature; and Albuquerque and Fraga Filho (2006), as a historiographical reference.