Memories of place for the character Miguilim in <i>Campo geral</i>, by Guimarães Rosa

Abstract

This article brings up a reflection on the construction of the memories of an infant character, in a fictional narrative, influenced by his relatives’ collective memories. The reading of the tale Campo Geral (2001) by João Guimarães Rosa, raises such discussion, based on the protagonist called Miguilim, a very sensitive little boy who sees everything through his sensible perceptions and reports from those who live along with him, to build up his own memory and to start his understanding upon his surroundings. It is through the external signals, the spatial and collective memories that this character builds and destroys his family and his own story. The protagonist evokes his memories to create a connection between his feelings and reality around him, even if such memories come from an extremely young mind and also, a little inexperienced. Focused on the comprehension of the memories building process during this part of one’s life, it becomes necessary to call some technical support of the authors Iván Izquierdo (2011), memory study under the neuroscience perspective, Alan Baddeley (2011) and his collaborators who do research on the memory building and Maurice Halbwachs (2015), who establishes relation between memory acquisition and social context. Besides such specialists, researchers as Doreen Massey (2008) and Gaston Bachelard (w/d) have also contributed with their studies by reflecting about the importance of place and space. Throughout these theories’ frameworks, we can grasp some forms for the acquisition and keeping of the infant memory.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/12957/matraga.2016.23528