Entre a casa-grande e o mocambo: O Moleque Ricardo no ciclo da cana-de-açúcar de José Lins do Rego

Abstract

The essay discusses the inclusion of José Lins do Rego’s Moleque Ricardo, published in 1935, in the author’s sugarcane cycle. The paper develops an argument for the unity of the cycle’s five novels, published between 1932 and 1936, which outline the moment of historical transience in which they were written. The centrality of the theme of work in the 1935 novel highlights the importance of this issue throughout the whole cycle, which proves to be in tune with national debates in the 1930s. A second moment in the essay characterizes the ambiguity of the point-of-view, a result of the coexistence of proximity and distance in relation to the workers, central characters in the novel.