Topophobia and Topophilia in O Quinze: an ecocritical analysis of Rachel de Queiroz's work

Abstract

In 1930, the writer Rachel de Queiroz published the work O Quinze, which it fits into the regionalist prose of the second phase of Brazilian Modernism, highlighting the Ceará sertão. In this context, this research aims to investigate, under the method of Discourse Analysis of the French Line and the Ecocritical perspective - which studies the imbrications between Literature and Ecology -, the human-environment relations and the representations of the sertanejo and the sertão that the author describes, also dialoguing with the human feeling that is awakened in the dialogue with the place, with the environment and with the territory, in view of the concepts of topophobia - aversion to the physical environment - and topophilia - familiarity or attachment, proposed in 1980 by Chinese geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Thus, the discourses present in the narrative demonstrate the predominance of the feeling of horror of the caatinga (topophobia), due to the problems arising from the drought, although there is a change in the landscape amidst the first rains, also modifying the relationship of man with the environment, making it more pleasant and therefore topophilic. In this way, Ecocritique is constituted as an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field, thus representing a robust tool for understanding human-environment relations.