Representações sobre a cultura escolar no romance Doidinho (1933), de José Lins do Rego Cavalcanti (1901-1957)

Abstract

This study has as general objective to understand the representations about the school culture in the novel "Doidinho" (1933), by José Lins do Rego Cavalcanti, in the trajectory of Carlos de Melo (Carlinhos). This novel, of an autobiographical nature, is a continuation of the “Menino de Engenho (1932). In this sense, I raised the different practices recorded by the character / narrator, including school space, school practices, physical and psychological punishment, values and rituals. Thus, the literature consulted and the contribution of authors within the school culture (FORQUIN, 1993; JULIA, 2001; FRAGO, 1995), allowed us to find some representations, understood in the sense of Chartier (1999) on the educational process and the educational experiences that were gradually being structured in Brazil, between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The time frame for the study corresponded to the 1930s, anchored in the first edition of the novel "Doidinho" edited by Editora Ariel, Rio de Janeiro. In the plot narrated by the writer, he builds the character named Carlinhos who sees, experiences, acts, conditions the action, conflicts and constantly questions the school world and its educational practices. This research fits in the field of History of Education, inspired by the New Cultural History, in authors such as Le Goff (1990), Burke (2001) without losing sight of the interweaving between literature and biographical novel. The data collection was carried out in the work of José Lins do Rego, in dialogue with the collected literature, thus allowing the description and analysis of the representative elements of the school culture in the aforementioned novel. In the findings it was possible to understand the representations of the school space as "prison", "jail", "cage"; of the teacher as "executioner", "sadist", "flagellator of boys"; school practices and content, and above all, the loss of identity, understood by the "mutilation of the self." These representations present in the novel are similar to other elements of the school culture in the period, such as boarding schools and seminars.