'Sobre héroes y tumbas': um romance de personagem

Abstract

The Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato (1911-2011) believed that the novel should be structured from the subject, focusing on his moods, feelings and ideas, presenting himself with a new logic detached from the rationalist influence established by the appreciation of thought. scientific. For the Argentine author, while science could renounce the “I”, the novel was unable to do so. And it was this difference that allowed literature to more easily perceive the existence of a richer and more complex reality. Therefore, for Sabato, the characters were considered fundamental pieces in the construction of a novel, since he saw them as creations of the author's imagination capable of superimposing writing on reality, making it even more powerful and impactful. In addition, it is the characters who give voice to many of Sabato's ideas, especially those related to literature and his way of seeing the modern world, according to him, hostage to the advances of science and technology. Ideas that often appear first in his essays and then in his novels. Based on these ideas, this article analyzes how the characters were constructed in Sobre héroes y tumbas (1961), pointing out the strategies used by the author, as well as establishing points of contact between his conceptions about the literary and scientific universe. To substantiate this analysis, in addition to part of his critical fortune, some of the essays written by Sabato were used as a reference, in particular El escritor y sus fantasmas (1963).