A FIGURAÇÃO “PROBLEMATIZADORA” DE GONÇALO RAMIRES

Abstract

This study bases itself on a version of A Ilustre Casa de Ramires published in 1900, which differs considerably from the (incomplete) version found in the 1897-1899’s Revista Moderna. It is a veritable “character novel”, permeated with irony and containing the two vectors that serve as guidance for the protagonist’s intimate flowing and acting, bestowing upon him a fictional weight, in a multilayered weaving: thanks to his words, thoughts and actions, both vectors document the search of Gonçalo, a rural nobleman hailing from an ancient lineage of daring Ramires, for wealth, prestige and power. Nevertheless, we will find that Gonçalo is a figuration for the human fragility and plurality.

There is no judging by a narrator with authority to end the novel; instead, we are left with mere opinions held by others about the nobleman. It is up to the reader to fill in these and other ambiguities of a novel that presents a great many deal of specific aspects in Eça’s work (even “latest Eça’s”).