Entre Luísa e Juliana, opressora e oprimida: análise das personagens em conflito no romance O Primo Basílio, de Eça de Queiroz

Abstract

This research work has as its object of research the novel O Primo Basílio, by Eça de Queirós, whose objective is to compose, in the face of post-industrial revolution capitalism, the social life of the characters Juliana and Luísa. The research is justified by the importance of studying Portuguese literature, the realistic novel, and the characters, in which the theme focuses specifically on the characters Luísa and Juliana in an urban setting at the end of the 19th century. In this way, the studies demonstrated how literature aligns with history, because it was necessary to discuss the capitalist society of the time (MOISÉS, 2008), to follow the trajectory of the artistic movement called Realism, continuing with the description of the criticism that was the predominance of the elite in the 19th century. Hence, the characterization of the characters, discrimination and class differences during the 19th century also distinguished the states of oppression in the Ecian novel. We sought to highlight the duel between the two characters, placed, in the novel, in very different social situations: one the mistress, the other the maid. For this, the methodology used collected information about the formation of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, whose research is qualitative and bibliographical, based on the investigation of the novel by Eça de Queirós. Thus, because of the research, it was observed that the novel is projected on the issues of class struggles, and on the conflict generated in the second half of the 19th century about class consciousness (MARX, 2006). The novel then follows a path of criticism of capitalism, mainly in the formation of the bourgeois class, constituted in the novel by the universe of Luísa, in contrast with the existence of Juliana, who, initially, fulfills an invisibility, until she manages to compromise her mistress with the love letters to Basílio, inverting the spaces of power in the house (ANDRADE, 2017). Thus, it can be concluded that the class struggle is represented in the novel as an aesthetic form (AGUIAR E SILVA, 2009) capable of putting the 19th century novel in confrontation with what will come throughout the 20th century.