Pact and Exorcism in the cordel ‘The Woman who deceived the Devil’

Abstract

This paper intends to show a possible understanding of pacts with the Devil and exorcisms since the colonial period and to situate this mentality present in cordel ‘The woman who deceived the Devil', by Manoel D'Almeida Filho. The objective is to analyze the pacts made with the Devil and to verify the inversion of power between the woman and the Devil, who is exorcised at the end of the narrative. The theoretical referential of Laura de Mello e Souza corroborates the discussion and comprehension of the colonial historical context, a period in which the mentality of pacts with the Devil and exorcisms populated the popular imaginary. Theopoetics is the understanding bias of this work. Antônio Carlos Magalhães and Salma Ferraz provide the theopoetic backdrop for this study and help in the approximation between theology and literature. The methodology chosen is bibliographic research, promoting the understanding of the cordel imaginary about pacts and exorcisms and the analytical reading of the chosen leaflet. A possible form of cultural and literary, imagistic and spiritual exorcism of the Devil appears as a result of the deception promoted by the woman, and is established through humor, pilhery and ridicule applied to the Wicked One.