Raça e eugenia na Obra Geral de Monteiro Lobato

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the changes of the terms "race" and "eugenics" in the Obra Geral of Monteiro Lobato, target at adults, between 1904 and 1940. During this period, it was possible to identify at least five different phases of use and definition of such terms by the author. The first phase is based in racialist-evolutionist comments inspired by such authors as Spencer and Darwin. In a second moment, Lobato adopts a vague conception of race, crystallized in social types economically determined by the condition called "tapera". The third stage refers to the period in which his writings were focused on the diffusion of sanitarianism-hygienism, after 1918, based on a neolamarckian conception of race. Subsequently, the author expresses himself through a definition of "social Darwinism", especially in the midst of O Presidente Negro, in 1926. Finally, in 1947, with the character Zé Brasil, a landless worker, Lobato adopts a non-racial but economic response. These variations of the author's position were analyzed in relation to the modifications of the field of literary production, which have intimate relation and homology with the scientific field and its transformations in the beginning of the XX century