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BIBTEX RIS

Ageing and Brazilian literature

1999; Elsevier BV; Volume: 354; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0140-6736(99)90266-0

1474-547X

Moacyr Scliar, Cláudio Csillag,

History, Culture, and Society

Moacyr Scliar, a public-health physician, is an assistant professor in the department of preventive medicine of the Faculdade Federal de Ciencias Medicas, in Porto Alegre. Brazil. He has worked in the Health State Department in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where he was public-health director, and he has worked for the Ministry of Health and for the Pan-American Health Organisation. Scliar is the author of 48 fiction and non-fiction books, including Transformed Passions: The Image of the Doctor in Literature (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996) and His Majesty of the Xingu (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997), which is about a physician who dedicates his life to assist Indians in Brazil (winner of a Brazilian Academy of Literature prize). Claudio Csillag is The Lancet's news correspondent in Brazil. He is currently executive editor of the Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, published by the Brazilian Association of Psychiatry. He worked as scientific assistant editor at Folha de S. Paulo, Brazil's largest daily newspaper, and as biomedical text editor at Ciencia Hoje, published by the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science. He has contributed as a correspondent to Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is author of the novel Transito (São Paulo: Estacao Liberdade, 1995; in Portuguese only), and coauthor of A Guide to the Pregnant Man (São Paulo: Publifolha, 1999). He is a medical student in his sixth year at the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Brazil. Images of the elderly in Brazilian literature reflect the changes in Brazilian society since 1500, when the country was discovered by the Portuguese. Until the middle of the 20th century, agriculture was Brazil's economic mainstay, and in this context the large estate had an important role. The landowner wielded almost unlimited authority over his property; it was an eminently patriarchal society that shaped the emergence of paternalism as a form of political power.1Buarque de Holanda S Raízes do Brasil.in: 15th edn. Livraria José Olympio Editora, Rio de Janeiro1982: 48-49Google Scholar An advanced age was therefore synonymous not only with knowledge and experience but also with power. Two classical works of Brazilian Romanticism exemplify this fact. O Guarani, by José de Alencar (1829-77),2de Alencar J O guarani.3rd edn. Ática, São Paulo1977Google Scholar is set in a farmhouse in a region near the city of Rio de Janeiro in the early 17th century, when Brazil was still a Portuguese colony. The estate belongs to Dom Antonio de Mariz, a Portuguese nobleman, who, because of services rendered to Portugal, received large tracts of land. In the house, a kind of fortified castle, lives Dom Antonio's family, the servants, and a group of 40 mercenaries in charge of local protection. Dom Antonio is not only the landowner but also the master of the house; he is, as he says to one of the men who works for him, "the father of all the family to which he now belongs" (ref 2, p 23; quotations from this and other references translated from Portuguese by Lilia Astiz and Claudio Csillag). A complex plot unfolds: the mercenaries scheme to take hold of the house; there is the menace of an attack by the Indians of the region; and a love affair involves several characters. Over and above these events, the personality of the patriarch stands out. In the face of danger he is obliged to make a will. He calls his son and a young nobleman who intends to marry his daughter and declares: "I am sixty years old. … I am old" (ref 2, p 125). He recognises that Brazil, because of its nature and pure air, has the power to rejuvenate him, which was, in fact, a common belief in the first century after the country's discovery. It was believed that longevity, as well as the absence of the common diseases of Europe, resulted from the non-polluted water and atmosphere. The French missionary Claude d'Abbeville mentioned Indians who were 100, 140, and up to 180 years old.3Buarque de Holanda S Visão do paraiso. Livraria José Olympio Editora, Rio de Janeiro1959Google Scholar Brazilian nature provided the same effect as the fountain of youth, which Ponce de Leon believed existed in Florida. But this nature offered no protection against the aggression of human beings. At the end of the novel, the family is attacked by the rebellious mercenaries and by hostile Indians. In these dramatic circumstances, it is still Dom Antonio who, making use of his patriarchal prerogatives, decides on a collective suicide. The family agrees, and he shoots a gunpowder barrel, thus killing himself and all the members of his family. Brazilian literary Romanticism, which was influenced by Byron, Scott, Lamartine, and Chateaubriand, had a strong nationalist inclination. This nationalism was manifested in the idealisation of the Brazilian Indian, as shown in O Guarani by the heroic character of the Indian Peri (who fights against the "bad" Indians) and in the epic poem "I-Juca-Pirama"4Gonçalves Dias A I-Juca-Pirama.in: Alves AT Antologia de poetas Brasileiros. Logos, São Paulo1950: 33-47Google Scholar, 5Freyre G Casa grande e senzala.15th edn. Livraria José Olympio Editora, Rio de Janeiro1954Google Scholar (an Indian expression that means "the one who deserves to die"), written by Antonio Gonqalves Dias (182364). In the epic, members of the Indian tribe of Timbiras, who are fearsome cannibalistic warriors, capture an Indian from the Tupi tribe, who was roaming with his old, blind father after their village had been destroyed. In tears, the young Indian asks the Timbiras to spare his life. The warriors respond contemptuously, "We do not want vile flesh to weaken the strong" (ref 4, p 40); they free him and send him away. He goes back to his father, who despite his blindness finds out that his son had been made a prisoner: he discovers that his son's hair has been cut. Using his paternal authority, the father decides that they should go back to the Timbiras' village, so that his son can be killed in sacrifice. In front of the Timbiras, the father accuses him: "You, coward, my son you are not" (ref 4, p 43). His pride wounded, the young Tupi man fights with the Timbiras, until their chief declares that he is acquitted of the charge of being a coward. Father and son reconcile, and the poem has a happy ending. The old Indian is equivalent to José de Alencar's patriarch: although blind and feeble, he still has the power of decision that is granted him by his status as father and by his age. The patriarchal model has been reflected alongside the process of economic development–in which the state always had a decisive role–and in the political context–in which the image of the benevolent chief (the "father of the country") had an important role. The classical example is Getúlio Vargas. The owner of a large rural estate, he governed the country from 1930 to 1945. A kind of Brazilian Bismarck, he fostered industrialisation and at the same time created a social welfare system for the workers, which included old-age retirement paid by the state. The patriarchal society underwent a period of ascent, stability, and decline. Os Devaneios do General (The Daydreams of the General), by Érico Veríssimo (1905-75),6Veríssimo E Os devaneios do general.in: Fantoches e outros contos. Editora Globo, Porto Alegre, RS1981: 237-246Google Scholar shows the recent decadence of an old southern chief. Once a powerful man who did not hesitate to kill his enemies, he is now tied to a wheelchair. A servant takes care of him, a mulato whose father the general ordered to be killed; the servant now avenges his father by sneering at his former tormentor. The general finds a moment of solace when his young grandchild proudly shows him a small lizard he has just decapitated. The increase in life expectancy, urbanisation, and industrialisation has brought to Brazil the same problems old people face in other affluent countries: solitude and abandonment. These elements are present in the last work of one who is regarded as the greatest ever Brazilian novelist, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908)- Memorial de Aires (Aires' Memorial)–which was published in the same year as the death of the author.7Machado de Assis JM Memorial de Aires. Civilízação Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro1975Google Scholar The theme of this book is the solitude of old age. A few years earlier, Machado de Assis had lost his wife, a dedicated companion (the couple had no children). "I am alone in the world", wrote the writer to a friend. "We were old but I was sure I would die before her, which would be a great favour."8Machado de Assis JM Introduction.in: Memorial de Aires. Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro1975: 15Google Scholar Written in the first person, the novel tells the story of an old couple who seek assistance from their adoptive children Tristan and Fidelia, but the children want to live their own lives. The last paragraph describes the old couple seated, "looking at each other…. They were comforted by the nostalgia of each other" (ref 7, p 116). José Maria, who resembles many of Machado de Assis' characters, is the protagonist of a story by Anibal Machado (1894-1964), Viagem aos Seios de Duilia(Travel unto the Breasts of Duilia)9Machado A Viagem aos seios de Duília.in: Dimas A Os melhores contos de Anibal Machado. Global, São Paulo1984: 49-70Google Scholar He is a public employee, a solitary man, who "had no friends, no woman, no lover. There was the telephone, it is true. But nobody called" (ref 9, p 50). Finally he retires but does not know what to do with the time left: "I am free now, free…. But free, for what?" (ref 9, p 51). He then remembers an old girlfriend, Duilia, and how dazzled he was as a teenager when he saw her perfect breasts. He decides to visit her and goes back to the town of his youth, only to be disillusioned: the Duilia whom he had known is now an old woman, a "pale reflection of the other" (ref 9, p 68). Only her voice reminds him of the past. Convinced that the past will not come back, he returns to the city. Brazil has seen a substantial increase in life expectancy at birth, from 41·5 years in 1940 to about 64 years for men and 71 years for women in 1996 (for the most recently available government data, see http://www.ibge.gov.br/informacoes/estat.htm-site accessed Sept 3, 1999). According to the Ministry of Health, people older than 60 years of age are the fastest growing population group in the country. This group represents 8% of Brazilians–more than 12 million people. The impact on the health-care system, as well as the lack of resources for assistance in health and social support, is a huge challenge to Brazilian doctors–a challenge that writers, being unable to solve, at least are able to portray.