Capitães da areia: a infância periférica na ficção

Abstract

Based on the study of authors such as Adilson de Ângelo, Franciele C. Peloso, Phillippe Ariès, Neil Postman, Veronica R. Muller, and some others, this study evidence that the way childhood is described is homogeneous, for it does not include different social realities. We know that, in Brazil, the history of childhood is marked by issues such as cultural privation, social, economic and educational marginality. Therefore, the recognition of different childhoods is essential for all people to be respected throughout their experiences. The focus of this work turns to Jorge Amado's novel, Capitães da areia (1937), the story of the group Capitães da areia, the so-called poor boys who lived in Salvador and were thefts and blows and lived in an abandoned trapiche. Through a descriptive research around the novel, we questioned the way in which children, marked by inequalities, and the period of their childhood is portrayed in the literary sphere and, contributing to the broadening of the studies of vulnerable childhood in the twentieth century. We realize from this Amadian work that the complexity of the reality of a country that cannot solve its political and social problems remains up to date. Consequently the image of innocence and purity, which is so associated with childhood, is damaged. Jorge Amado's work is primarily humanitarian. The theme of abandoned childhood remains current, for the social structure remains as portrayed in the novel, the same injustices, the same discriminations, the same excluded, the same discourse that boils down to bourgeois interests.