Cacau, by Jorge Amado: the Rise of the Proletarian Novel in Brazil (After 90 Years)

Abstract

This paper examines the novel Cacau, by Jorge Amado, as a possible proletarian novel of Brazilian rural matter. The well-known work of the author from Bahia is an unavoidable reference to the so-called 1930’s novel, for it vehemently exposes the national obstacles that weren’t overpassed after 90 years, such as the struggle for land ownership, the exploitation of workers without rights, the dependent condition of our economy based on agro-exportation based economy in the global world-system. Moreover, the work presents itself as a literary form in the frontier-less dispute for the direction of the historical process by envisioning in the universal revolutionary alternative the overcoming of the century-old local impasses that subjugated the subaltern classes to the condition of being dominated by regional oligarchies, which are, in their turn, subordinated to international capital.