Mestizo marriages: the tragedies of Isabel and Iracema in José de Alencar's Indianist novels

This essay studies two cases of interracial marriages in two indianist novels by José de Alencar — O guarani and Iracema. In the first, I analyse the secret relationship of D. Antonio Mariz with an anonimous indian woman who gives birth to a girl called Isabel. But D. Antonio presented her as his ni...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Marins, Álvaro
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2012
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)
Repository:Literatura e Autoritarismo
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/75222
Online Access:http://periodicos.ufsm.br/LA/article/view/75222
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Jose de Alencar
O guarani
Iracema
Indianism
Portuguese settlement
José de Alencar
Indianismo
Colonização portuguesa
Description
Summary:This essay studies two cases of interracial marriages in two indianist novels by José de Alencar — O guarani and Iracema. In the first, I analyse the secret relationship of D. Antonio Mariz with an anonimous indian woman who gives birth to a girl called Isabel. But D. Antonio presented her as his niece, not as his daugther. I analyse the character Isabel into the portuguese colonial context and her family situation. In the second case, I analyse the relationship of a tabajara indian called Iracema with a portuguese conquer called Martim, and the consequences of that for her and her tribe, and thus, for the colonial battles between indians and europeans. I aim to understand the ideological reasons of Alencar and his motivations for creating his indianist romantic novels. The studies of Nelson Werneck Sodré, Alfredo Bosi e Luiz Filipe Ribeiro on the indianist style were very useful and helped me to develop this text.