Author: Lemuel de Faria Diniz It is with pleasure that I share a little behind the scenes of the preparation of my article “Ugly and amputa...
It is with pleasure that I share a little behind the scenes of the preparation of my article “Ugly and amputate characters in The Woman who wrote the Bible, by Moacyr Scliar”. I'm from Brazil, where I live in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul and teach at UFMS university. I have been researching this writer's work since 2013, when I started my PhD in Literature. I enjoy studying this author, as he is very connected with the demands of the contemporary scenario. In my classes at UFMS, I often mention it and, because of this, my students were interested in writing their course conclusion monograph based on one of the writer's most celebrated novels - The Woman who wrote the Bible.
As researchers in the field of Literature, my students realized that the book posed challenges to literary theory and these issues pushed them to research the work of the Brazilian writer in depth. In the following paragraphs, you will be able to see some of the theoretical complexity evoked by this novel and, in doing so, remember the lessons learned about literary classifications.
The Woman who wrote the Bible contains an epigraph, taken from a passage translated from a book by the renowned literary critic Harold Bloom. As the scholar Gérard Genette explains, an epigraph is “a quotation placed in exergo [a small space under a medal for an inscription, date; this inscription], prominently, usually at the beginning of a work or part of a work”. Widespread during the 18th century, the epigraph, according to Genette, could even be placed at the end of the book, although its common location “is closest to the text, usually on the first even page after the dedication, but before the preface”. In this scholar's view, the location of the epigraph is related to the reader. Thus, when the epigraph is at the beginning of the book, it is “awaiting its relationship with the text”, while the epigraph at the end of the literary work, because it is presented after the text has been read, “has in principle an obvious and more authoritatively conclusive meaning: it is the final word, even if one pretends to leave it to someone else.” (GENETTE, 2009, p. 131-135).
The epigraph present in The Woman who wrote the Bible fits into the function that Genette classifies as “the title's justificatory annex”, imposing itself “almost from the time when the title itself is constituted as a loan, an allusion or a parodic deformation” (GENETTE, 2009, p. 141). Scliar's book contains an epigraph that underpins the “thesis” of the novel - that a woman wrote the Bible. This epigraph, taken from the book by Harold Bloom, a respected literary critic and biblical scholar, is a fundamental quotation for the construction of verisimilitude, since the plot of Scliar's work is set in biblical times of the Old Testament, when it was not at all usual for women to write sacred texts - all the narrators of the books that make up the Bible were men.
Still taking The Woman who wrote the Bible into account, it can be seen that the epigraph is followed by a preface. However, unlike some literary works in which there is a preface by the editor, here there is a fictional preface written by someone who calls himself an ex-historian. In this fictional preface, consisting of eight pages, what the narrator says ends up functioning as a prolepse, since he anticipates the end of the novel: just as he - a fake past-life therapist [present only in the fictional preface] - reports that his patient, who was in love with him until then, leaves him and goes away with her father's former employee, the ugly woman, the narrator-character of the novel, at the end of the novel leaves King Solomon and goes in search of the little shepherd, a former employee of her father.
As my students have always been interested in the question of beauty, they marveled at the fact that the book's protagonist was ugly. The main character in Scliar's novel is not named. She is only called “the ugly one” and some phobias are perceived in her. Perhaps it could be said that at the beginning of the narrative she had philophobia (fear of falling in love) and, considering various passages in the book, she considers only Judeo-Christian beliefs to be sacred - in other words, the ugly one would have hagiophobia (aversion to sacred things), because she prefers what comes from paganism and not what comes from the Jewish culture in which she is inserted.
I guided the students through all of the above issues, and they decided with me to focus the research on the ugly and amputee characters, as they understood that the author of the work had a predilection for showing the importance of ugliness in the construction of the characters' identity. Thus, one of the elements analyzed was the shepherd boy who had his arm cut off at the behest of King Solomon. After this physical loss, the shepherd boy took refuge in a cave, where he rethought his life and managed to recover emotionally, getting back together with people. His disability didn't stop him from building an affectionate relationship with the ugly girl, because they had a lot in common, such as their pastoral vocabulary - they both used terms like goats, mountain, cave, earth.
With all these particularities adorning the work, the research developed fluidly and continuously. Meetings were held after classes. We talked, exchanged ideas, shared suggestions and the result was the preparation of a successful final course work and, finally, the publication of the research in the prestigious Global Journal of Human-Social Science.
As well as researching Moacyr Scliar's novels, I write short stories which are available on the Amazon platform. There you can find the following books: Female sensuality in Moacyr Scliar's trilogy, Lolita and other short stories, Nudity in poetry, Screens and literary movements, Female beauty and insight in Moacyr Scliar's trilogy and Female laughter in Moacyr Scliar's trilogy. The link to access them is:
I hope you enjoyed my little story. I'll see you at the next research and reading sessions. Cheers!
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