METONYMIC AND METAPHORICAL SLIPS IN MEMORIAL DE MARIA MOURA, BY RACHEL DE QUEIROZ: THE HIDDEN BEHIND THE NAMES

Abstract

This article's basic proposal is to discuss the linguistic slippages related to proper names in the novel "Memorial de Maria Moura," by Ceará-born writer Rachel de Queiroz. This is the writer's last novel, published in 1992. In it, we encounter the protagonist Maria Moura, a woman who learned through the harshness of life to be "tough," having gone from being a fragile sinhazinha (little lady) to Dona (a title she called herself/was proud of). Furthermore, we emphasize that, in our analysis, we draw on linguistic studies from Saussure, Benveniste, and, especially, the Russian polymath Roman Jakobson, and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. We will thus observe the slippage of metaphorical (similarity) and metonymic (contiguity) signifiers proposed by Jakobson in "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasia," in line with the aforementioned fields. This study proposes a multidisciplinary approach, focusing on a work from our literary collection, to observe what signifiers (nouns) conceal. It is worth noting that Jakobson argues in Linguistics and Poetics that poetics (literature) is a genuine object of study for the science of language. Turning a blind eye to this is an inconsequential dichotomy, an epistemological anachronism.