The naturalization of the unreal: the metamorphosis in short stories by Murilo Rubião and José J. Veiga

Abstract

In the tradition of the treatment given to the theme of metamorphosis, whether or not in literary works, the implausible design of transformation/regeneration, physical and/or psychological, emphasizes the divine and extraordinary purposes of the phenomenon. The inspiration in the oral tradition, in the magic or in the myth concentrates the episode in relations established with the supernatural and other unusual instances that approach metamorphosis to the divine experience. In contemporary literature, the dismemberment of fictional beings occurs in the intersection of plausible and implausible elements. In the fable design, aspects of narrative and character attitudes highlight the metamorphosis as a banal attribute naturally accepted by the fictional beings. The impossible is housed in ordinary events of everyday life by integrating a complete cohesion between the natural and the supernatural. In the short stories “The dragons” (1965) and “The cannibal dog” (1968), by the Brazilian writers Murilo Rubião and José J. Veiga, respectively, no explanation is given to the strange duality of the characters. Unreal fits harmoniously into common situations, subverting the conception that we have of reality. Masters in the art of uncertainty and recognized by the extraordinary ability to gather the implausible and
the unknown by gaps of the imaginary, Veiga and Rubião share a new fictional perspective on fantastic architecture. It is therefore following such a thought that we want to analyze, in this paper, the two short stories mentioned above, focusing on the intertextual dialogue between the two writers and exploring the thematic and formal aspects of metamorphosis in order to raise reflections on the renewed feature of contemporary fantastic.