Fairness inside the whirl. Law, Justice and Violence in Guimarães Rosa´s short stories

Abstract

Our article undertakes an analysis of three short stories by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa — «Irmãos Dagobé», «Fatalidade» and «Meu tio, o Iauaretê» — through the approximation between law studies and literary criticism. The legal dimensions of the narratives are thought through the notions of Law, Justice and Violence. The three short stories share the fact that they present fictional situations in which there is a conflict, often insoluble, between different legal systems and social values ​​related to the notions of «justice». In each story, the metaphorical and social developments of such conflicts are analyzed. Our reading is based on Rosa´s brazilian literary criticism, in particular the readings made by Antonio Candido (2001), Eduardo F. Coutinho (2013), Paulo Rónai (2017), Silviano Santiago (2019), Walnice Nogueira Galvão (2006) and Lourival Holanda (2019). The article is divided into two parts: in the first, there is a presentation, for the reader unfamiliar with the work of the Brazilian writer, of his production context and the main characteristics of his work. In the second part, the three stories are analyzed according to the proposal of the relations between law and literature.