Routine and event – a reading of O estudante de Salamanca

Abstract

Observing the event, the semiotics theory permitted investigate the narrative as a process that affects both the subject of the utterance as the subject of the enunciation of the sensitive point of view, making it a useful tool for the reflection like we will do in this article. Our intention is to see how the feuilletons were produced to act on readers of the nineteenth century, more specifically on the Correio Paulistano readers. Many researchers of feuilletons describe several common procedures in the production of this type of text. Those procedures could explain the high rate of the feuilletons’ acceptance among the public for which they were intended. Based on the concepts developed by the tensive semiotics, more specifically about the event and the routine, we will make an analysis of the first chapters of O estudante de Salamanca, a feuilleton published in the abovementioned newspaper, in 1877, in order to reflect about the importance of the way of telling the history, that is as or even more important than that the own story. We will see that narratives resources that produced the surprise and suspense could have impact on the readers, keeping them attached to the narrative for weeks, months and even years. Thus, the enunciator should organize very well the game of revelation and concealment of information to guarantee his readers’ fidelity.