The hour and turn in Guimarães Rosa’s short story A hora e a vez de augusto matraga [The hour and turn of augusto matraga]

Abstract

This study aims to establish a study about the short story A hora e a vez de Augusto Matraga [The Hour and Turn of Augusto Matraga] seeking a discussion on how Guimarães Rosa recreated the Brazilian view on popular Catholicism by reinventing the philosophical relationship between man and religion. For this, it is observed the existential development from the protagonist who starts as Nho Nunes, whose status is of a violent and impetuous man, and reaches a new condition as Augusto Matraga, whose personality is of a religious and resigned person. Hence, this article focuses on analyzing how the protagonist will gradually disengaging from Northeastern honor codes to incorporate a universal philosophical stance on the relationship between life and death in human history. This article is based upon the reflection on the popular belief that the time of death may be "the hour and turn" of redemption for a man, which is addressed as the climax of the story and renewal of the character. Therefore, it intends to verify the protagonist’s trajectory of existential transformation, from his pre-death until its actual occurrence. This allows the understanding of how Guimarães Rosa’s prose moves from a local discussion to a global one, when it approaches human fears and yearnings.