O percurso do ator “Severino” em Morte e Vida Severina: uma leitura semiótica

Abstract

Through the theoretical framework on French Semiotics, this paper aims at analyzing the construction of the actor "Severino” in the book Morte e Vida Severina, written by João Cabral de Melo Neto, focusing on understanding his actant, thematic and pathemic roles. Our goal is to observe the manner in which Severino’s identity is molded and its relation with the space in which he is projected, a dramatic scenario in which the actor manifests himself as being not only the subject of performing, who fights to survive in an arid environment, but also as the subject of state, a passional subject, who oscillates between states of sadness and happiness, revealing the suffering of his fellow people, who are oppressed by drought, to the enunciatee. However, Severino never loses hope in life. Thus, the actor, in the thematic role of migrant, is the simulacrum of the northeastern man who emerges from the aridity of the land, and despite his suffering, he never gives up life, no matter how hard it is. Therefore, our objective is to analyze the construction of the actor “Severino” manifested in the text both as a systemic organization recognizable in the depths of the generation of sense as well as a relative contingency to the encounter between the poetic persona and the others. Elements of the generative course of sense will be applied to the text as methodological hypothesis related to the semiotics of action, as well as some aspects of the semiotics of passion.