When a Tail is Missing – Or the Prosthetic Human Being Origin

Abstract

Abstract: We based on an attempt to approach two writings. On the one hand, a thoughtful literature piece, in the words of Evando Nascimento: Grande sertão: veredas; on the other hand, the Derridian writing that, in a deconstructed thought, points out heterodox possibilities of tradition interpretation. The scope is on the scene analysis in which a monkey - which was actually a man - is being devoured. Such situation draws a paradox in the Rosian writing. In parallel, Derrida’s analysis of devouring meat or human flesh scenes (symbolic or not), are both part of the West’s “phallogocentric” tradition. They draw an imperative of the social domination structure and the Rosian scene is analyzed as a problematizing inscription of the tradition that associates certain eating acts with the essentially defining constitution of what is the dominant human being. Derrida states in “Il fault bien manger” that the human social structure assumes and requires the “non-criminal ingestion of the corpse”, even the human one. The Rosian scene, however, comes out as a terrifying puncture in the social structure of the human subject, since, while enclosing the structuring gesture of virility and manhood configurations, it also contains the destructive gesture of human essence.

Keywords: violence; food; devouring; ex-appropriation.