The boundaries of the Opaque

Abstract

The central topic of The Prisoner, novel by Erico Verissimo, is, according to the author, human stupidity in its many forms. The statement is categorical but vague. The novel’s main themes are the racism and the war, with its violence and violations. But if in value aspects both war and racism are very close with stupidity, their unification demands less subjectivity. Passing from what brings them close to what make them equals is the ethical function of the author’s humanist advocacy. This article intends to presentes, as literary counterpart of that advocacy, an epistemic premise; I try to show that the novel's structure allows to delineate, besides the illegitimacy of the political actions in question, the fragility and insufficiency of the very beliefs with which it is intended to be founded.