The grotesque, the marginal and the strangeness in the romance Favelost, by Fausto Fawcett

Abstract

This article analyzes the meaning-making strategies of literary statements present in the novel Favelost, by Fausto Fawcett. We selected as a theoretical-methodological reference the Discourse Analysis proposed by Dominique Maingueneau, which significantly contributes to the analysis of literary discourses by proposing the need to organize a hermeneutic framework for the critical reading of literary statements. We opted for a hermeneutic framework consisting of: marginal literature, characterized by giving voice to characters and settings often relegated to the periphery of society; the poetics of uncertainty, which operates through a continuous suspension of disbelief, keeping the speaker in a state of hesitation between rational and supernatural explanations; and the grotesque, a powerful tool to highlight social aberrations and injustices, using shock and disturbance to provoke an emotional reaction in the co-speaker. As a result of the research, we demonstrated that the confluence of the three discursive formations not only reinforces the speculative character of the selected sample, but also provides a hermeneutic framework that proposes an in-depth critical reading.