Dialética da ordem e da desordem: uma leitura de “Malagueta, perus e bacanaço”

Abstract

In his fiction, short-story writer, João Antônio, composes narratives that focus on the underworld of the marginalized, with characters who represent individuals living at the fringes of the economic mainstream, excluded from the official consumer market and deprived of rights and privileges inherent to the average citizen, relegated, thus to marginal conditions. Lacking adequate means to fulfill their basic needs and to assure a dignified existence, these characters survive through artifices such as games of chance, petty theft, prostitution and other illegal endeavors inherent in the universe of trickery, which characterizes this marginal life. Based on Antonio Candido's categories of trickery and the "dialectic of order and disorder", this essay analyzes some aspects of the short story "Malagueta, Perus e Bacanaço", by João Antonio