Existing where nothing is: the Faustian hero in the backlands ‘whirlwinds’ of madness

Abstract

This study proposes an analysis of the relation between Faustian bargain and madness in Grande sertão: veredas (1956). At first, it is shown how the environment of the sertão leads to inventiveness and fantasy, as do other elements of the text, such as its constitution as a product of memory and the narrator’s attempt to organize himself. From this, the article briefly goes through the tradition of the Faustian motif in literature, placing it, in Rosa's novel, in the field of subjectivity, ambivalence and the vicissitudes of the pact maker. Furthermore, Doctor Faustus, a novel by Thomas Mann – Rosa’s contemporary – which deals with the same leitmotif, is brought up, lending itself to clarifying comparisons.