From the Upper to the Lower City

Rio de Janeiro in A estrela sobe, by Marques Rebelo

Abstract

Abstract: We aim to discuss the importance of space in Marques Rebelo’s novel A estrela sobe (1939). The plot is centered on a curious overview of the 1930s last years, while it shows the singular shock between Rio de Janeiro city and the character Leniza Máier, a young aspirant to the radio singing career. In Leniza’s trajectory, the city is evidenced as a space of discontinuity and scission, observation and discourse. A estrela sobe narrative gives rise to multiple meanings that go beyond the simple descriptive realm, since it maps out sensitivities and embodies not only spatial matters of the modern city, but especially the subjective and social aspects of the above-mentioned protagonist. By going downhill to abandon the innocence of the suburb where she grew up, Leniza rises as a star in the downtown area, at the same time she morally decays experiencing conflicts and isolation. The movements of going up and down are part of the own story meaning, offering a structural, labyrinthine and poetic picture of Rio de Janeiro. In this sense, spatiality is the potential and emblematic source of the novel as an incessant presence of the anguish and solitude experienced by the character. In order to undertake the analysis, we aim at questioning the functionality of space in the light of the theoretical concepts of Michel Foucault (2001), Iuri Lotman (1978), Gaston Bachelard (2001), among others. In addition, critical essays that address Marques Rebelo’s modern fiction will be considered.

Keywords: space; Marques Rebelo; A estrela sobe.