The Guarani

foundation myth of Brazilianness

Abstract

José de Alencar writes “O Guarani” as a fictitious representation, filled with as much information as possible to make a desperate intention believable. Indians, forests, wild animals – the scenario of European romanticization was an excess, its suffocating presence overwhelmed us. It is often said that José de Alencar's Indianism tried to eliminate this nuisance. But does he see only an idealized Indian, stripped of his real qualities? I do not think so. Reading the novel carefully, we realize that things are more complex. The birth of Brazil is not simply the crossing of culture with nature, but of a particular culture with a domesticated nature. Alencar's question is how to introduce civilization into a domain that is foreign to him, a problem that is radically different from that described by European Romanticism. "The Guarani", like the primitive myths, finds in the figure of incest (the fraternal union of Ceci and Peri) the artifice for the fecundation of a new order, but it is above all a novel of the waters, where the image of washing away impurities, permeates the narrative from beginning to end.