Reflections on old age and death in As intermitências da morte, by José Saramago

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5433/1678-2054.2020v39p48

Keywords:

Old age, Death, José Saramago

Abstract

In As intermitências da morte (2005), José Saramago invites us to reflect on the consequences of a life without death. This ancient desire of human beings is endangered when we see the chaos caused by the strike of a death that claims its importance in the lives of men. Based on the first intermittence of this death-character, we propose a reflection on the theme of death and old age, in order to understand how it distances itself from everyday concerns in contemporary times. In this process, we observe the interdiction of death caused by the intense medicalization of life and by a movement of market sectors that took care of the task of dealing with such a scary fact. In the reflections now proposed, we recognize that Saramago’s novel starts from the weird disappearance of death to transcend reality, acting in a way that extrapolates the natural order of existence, something that leads us to reflection, impelling us to think more about our finitude, to finally understand his withdrawal, which reflects much more our fear and incapacity in the face of death.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Carolina de Aquino Gomes, Universidade Federal do Piauí

Professor at the Universidade Federal do Piauí.

Ana Marcia Alves Siqueira, Universidade Federal do Ceará

Professor at the Universidade Federal do Ceará.

References

ADORNO, Theodor. Sociologia. São Paulo: Ática, 1994.

AGUILLERA, Fernando Gomes, org. As Palavras de Saramago. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras: 2010.

ARNAUT, Ana Paula. José Saramago. Lisboa: Edições 70, 2008.

BAUMAN, Zygmunt. O mal-estar da Pós-Modernidade. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1998.

BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Cegueira moral: a perda da sensibilidade na modernidade líquida. Trad. Carlos Alberto Medeiros. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2014.

ELIAS, Norbert. A solidão dos moribundos, seguido de Envelhecer e Morrer. Trad. Plínio Dentzien. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2001.

LUKÁCS, G. História e consciência de classe: estudos de dialética marxista. Trad. Rodnei Nascimento. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2003.

MARX, Karl. ENGELS, F. Manifesto do partido comunista. São Paulo: Penguin, 2012. [1848].

MONTAIGNE, Michel de. Ensaios: Que filosofar é aprender a morrer e outros ensaios. Trad. Júlia da Rosa Simões. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 2016. [1595].

SARAMAGO, José. As intermitências da morte. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005.

Published

2020-12-11

How to Cite

Gomes, Carolina de Aquino, and Ana Marcia Alves Siqueira. “Reflections on Old Age and Death in As Intermitências Da Morte, by José Saramago”. Terra Roxa E Outras Terras: Revista De Estudos Literários, vol. 39, Dec. 2020, pp. 48-59, doi:10.5433/1678-2054.2020v39p48.