Os dias do demônio e a arquetípica relação entre personagens e terra

Abstract

Since the initial stages of the cultural development, men have been connected to the soil. This link embraces, but also exceeds anthropological reasons, finding support in the transpersonal psychic substratum that, according to Jungians, is nominated the collective unconsciousness. As a content of this layer of the psyche, soil reproduces the archetype of the Great Mother, the universal experience with the feminine in the primeval stages of the development of the ego consciousness. In Roberto Gomes’ novel, Os dias do demônio, the fight for the soil takes on an archetypical nature, revealing, through the characters, the contemporary men’s attitude in relation to the feminine and to the unconsciousness. Therefore, this work aims at to comprehend, through the analysis of the relation between the characters and the soil, how the southeastern revolt reproduces the process of the filogenetic development of the ego consciousness. Stem from this a distinction of two groups of characters, which admits opposite attitudes. The Bushmen experience a heavenly relation with the soil, which is kept by maternity and fertility aspects, while the jagunços behave unilaterally exploitative and violent ones. In consequence, a dichotomy of the Virgin-Mother Soil – Prostitute Soil is established, being the guide in this reading of that literary text. As a conclusion, the analysis of the compound characters-soil conducts to the reflection about the psychic equilibrium between consciousness and unconsciousness in contemporary mankind.