The final battle: Riobaldo on the crossroad of phantoms

Abstract

In Guimarães Rosa’s The devil to pay in the backlands, Riobaldo, its main character, suddenly faints during the final duel between Hermógenes and Diadorim. This essay intends
to discuss Riobaldo’s loss of consciousness and identity in light of psychoanalysis and interpretations of Hamlet. The narrator/protagonist’s impossibility to act, as he feels
physically powerless next to the jagunço leader Urutu Branco, defines the novel’s tragic ending. The scene suggests some thoughts on agency and its inhibitions, in a search for new
levels of meaning beyond the novel’s unequivocal Faustian resonances. The fatal struggle and the pact with the devil in Rosa’s book will be reevaluated in this context, in order to
reveal new phantomatic identifications by the main character in his journey. Sigmund Freud and Anatol Rosenfeld will guide this search for new thematic and stylistic aspects in Rosa’s book.