A formação cultural do jurista brasileiro na obra de Lima Barreto

Abstract

The present work is understood as a study in the area of Law and Literature and its main objective is to discuss some categories present in the work of Lima Barreto that make it possible to think about the role of jurists in Brazilian society, using authors of the critical theory of law, especially Adilson Moreira, Philippe Almeida, Duncan Kenedy and Richard Delgado. We sought to answer which aspects of legal training have historically shown themselves to be an obstacle to critical thinking and to a transforming practice that fights against forms of subordination. The central hypothesis is that certain behaviors of legal agents maintain an oppressive and alienating state of affairs and the identification of these practices contributes to a legal education focused on social justice. The method used is based on the assumption that behind the legal discourse there is a social imaginary that validates unequal and unfair relations, based on violence, especially colonial violence, which is not explicit in the language of law. Firstly, a mapping of the discussion on legal education in the last thirty years was carried out through database research and discussions of selected works, then a survey of the secondary literature on Lima Barreto was carried out, discussing the reason for the choice of this author, as well as placing the context of his work in the First Republic (1889-1930), a period in which the formation of bachelors took place within a “civilizing mission” of building a national identity. For that, the works of Alfredo Bosi, Lilia Schwarcz, Denilson Botelho, Carmem Figueiredo, among others, were used. Finally, from the texts of Lima Barreto, including chronicles, short stories and especially his novels “Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma”, “Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha”, “Numa e Ninfa”, “Vida e Morte de M. J. Gonzaga de Sá”, “Clara dos Anjos”, and the satire “Os Bruzundangas”, a set of representations of the image of the jurist was identified, portrayed in general as superficial, grotesque or mediocre and characterized by an elitist doctoral nobility, based on a culture of appearances, bookish, ornamental, racist, wrapped in an apathetic bureaucracy and opposed to subordinate groups and the orality of the streets, elements that can still be identified in contemporary legal practices.