The unknown figure in Chronicle of the murdered house and its representations in the fictional manuscripts "Betty's Diary" and "André's Diary"

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate both the creation process and the representation of a unknown figure present in the novel named Chronicle of the murdered house, published in 1959 by Lúcio Cardoso. In the book’s structural fictional level this figure is responsible for rescuing and collecting a variety of manuscripts left by ten first-person narrators as they rearrange them in order to orchestrate the narrative voices that composes the novel. These narrative can be seen as some sort of “fictional manuscripts” – which is an expression employed by Julio Castañon Guimaraes who realized the text establishment of the critical edition of the novel – since they are compounded by letters, diaries, testimonies, memoir and narratives. Anonymous and with no voice, the hidden figure leaves two types of marks in the fictional manuscripts: not only there omitted parts indicated by dots but also the notations that point to the material conditions of the work (as it is indicated by “written in the margin…”). In the light of the analytical methodology of the Genetic Criticism, this text is interested in discussing the representation of this hidden figure both in Betty’s Diary and André’s Diary. In other words, it seems for me that the notations that point to the material aspect of the fictional manuscripts, as well as the significations that the written in the margin evoke in the readers and in the novel’ structure.