THE DOUBLE AND THE OTHERNESS IN “O CÍRCULO”, BY RUTH LAUS

This article aims to approach the issue of deployment of the self in the short story "O círculo", by Ruth Laus, through the figure of the character Paula and the pursuit of her double. The study of the female character, while literary representation, and related to the duplicity, is associated with issues related to identity and the construction of the self, from an internal scission, allowing therefore to examine the representation of the double, permeated by issues related to otherness, especially regarding to the maintenance of subjectivity in the search of the Other as an extension of the self. The double, in turn, is established as the phenomenon able to settle an active connection with the world, the dialectic condition of the creature, as a way of affirmation from the conception of (re)cognition of the Other as a link between past-present-future in the (re)construction of the unit and establishment of the balance. For the character Paula the element that indicates the division of her personality is the aborted fetus and thenceforth begins the maintenance of the inner Self of the protagonist: find what from her was split.

The representation of the northeastern migrant: interstices and culture in the figure of Francisco da Silva in "Liberdade", by Ruth Laus

It serves as the object of analysis of this article the representation of the northeastern migrant in the figure of the male character Francisco da Silva, protagonist of the short story "Liberdade", by Ruth Laus, as a fictional character who lives "in an interrogatory, interstitial space between the act of representation [...] and the presence of community itself" (Bhabha, 1998, p. 22) where he comes to enter and to settle. Chico, as he is known, embarks on a crowded truck, and his fate, like that of many other migrants, is the Southeast region of Brazil, where, between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, he chooses the sea. To the same extent, beyond the concept(s) of culture(s), and the need to (re)think the concept of [cultural] human community - here adding the cultural term to the proposal of Bhabha (1998), as a way of thinking about the role of the individual - are taken and analyzed, also, the cultural identity concepts based on the difference itself. It is thought in what way, then, and through what imposing character, the wealth and the values ​​of the Northeast, although managed to be spread on national home soil, yet not are conspicuous by their guarantee of permanence of its inhabitants in their homeland.