Governmental Fictions: The Naturalist Novel and the Making of Population in Fin-de-Siècle Brazil

• Published in: Taller de letras Vol. 66; no. 66; pp. 167 - 183
• Main Author: Halaburda, Carlos Gustavo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Santiago Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Instituto de Letras 01.01.2020; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Instituto de Historia
• Subjects: 19th century; Aesthetics; Almeida, Julia Lopes de (1862-1934); Almeida, Júlia Lopes de; Biopolitics; Bourgeoisie; Brazilian literature; Burguesía; Comparative literature; Crítica literaria; Educación femenina; End of the century; Estética; Families & family life; Fin de siglo; Liberalism; Liberalismo; Literary criticism; Literatura brasileña; Mallet, Pardal; Morality; Naturalism; Naturalismo; Novela; Novels; Politics; Ribeiro, Julio; Sexualidad y literatura; Sexuality and literature; Siglo XIX; Women's education; Brasil; Brazil
• ISSN: 0716-0798
• DOI: 10.7764/tl66167-183

In this article, I want to explore three Brazilian fin-de-siecle novels that inaugurated a true aesthetic revolution that would have as its main subject of interest the governmentality of bourgeois conduct. A carne (1888) by Julio Ribeiro, A intrusa (1908) by Júlia Lopes de Almeida, and Hóspede (1887) by Pardal Mallet allow an examination of how the novel in turn-of-the-century Brazil assumed a governmental strategy of sex. I argue that these nation-building writers/pedagogues promoted a program of sexual conduct oriented toward the conservation of the institutionality of marriage, family, and reproduction. I demonstrate how female education not associated with the domestic space, inter-class marriage, promiscuity, and adultery were portrayed as transgressions against the biological futures of patrician circles.