Between the Man and the Ghost: Lídia on the Edge of the Bed, on the Edge of the World. Above, Woman of the People

Abstract

This article proposes a critical reading of Lídia Martins, a character of the novel The year of the death of Ricardo Reis, written by José Saramago, a maid at the Bragança hotel, the place where Ricardo Reis, Fernando Pessoa's heteronym, stays as soon as he arrives in Lisbon. A simple woman of the people, she subverts the image of the ethereal Lydia muse coined by Reis, and brings it to the reality whose rawness they cannot escape. He, because loses the ability to produce reasoning; she because is a woman, and as such, carries the prejudices produced historically and linked to the current system in Portugal. Ricardo Reis, however, is immersed in labyrinths, which allude to the Pessoa's multiplicity, which the author weaves in ironies, using the fantastic literature. Who is Ricardo Reis? The construction of Pessoa's heteronym? A ghost? Pessoa himself? Saramago invites us to walk through the labyrinths of Lisbon where all roads lead to Camões, a reunion with a history that seems insoluble amid the totalitarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. While everyone are ghosts, are dead and unable to think, Lídia is a real figure, the personification of the feminine, who survives through knowledge.