THE “ MUNICIPALITY TROUG”: A FOGO MORTO ANALYSIS, OF JOSE LINS DO REGO

Abstract

published in 1943, Fogo Morto is a novel that, according to Jose Aderaldo Castello,
synthecizes the whole previous work of Jose Lins of Rego. In the book in question, the author
introduced an important moment of brazilian politics history: the plot takes place in 1911/1912,
during the oligarch republic, period in which the colonels kept the control of the electoral
process. But the change signals already had started to appear with the election of Hermes da
Fonseca for president of the republic, in 1910, when was implemented the “salvation politics”. In
the ficcional world created by Jose Lins do Rego, it has three great characters – colonel Lula de
Holanda, José Amaro and Vitorino Carneiro da Cunha - that they represent three types of
speeches: of the huge ones, of the shady and the quixotic ones and that they become related of
sufficiently tense form in this environment of politics agitation. Moment of succession of the
state government, where the colonels, heads of political parties, organized its “electoral corrals”
to guarantee the victory of the candidate that they supported. Made these comments, with this
study, our interest is to analyze the way for which the novelist configured the question of the vote of muzzle in inside of this novel. Better saying, as a external factor - the moment of the
country politics history - became intern, in the words of Antonio Candido.