Vidas no esquecimento: o imaginário da loucura em Canto dos malditos, de Austregésilo Carrano Bueno

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the history of madness and the literary representation of the disease in Canto dos malditos, written by Austregésilo Carrano Bueno and published in 2004. The main aim of the research is the discussion of madness underlying the narrative of Carrano Bueno’s book, from the perspective of the social imaginary. In order to carry out the research the comparative methodology was used based on knowledge of history, sociology, journalism and literary review. In this paper the reader finds a possible history of madness and psychiatric hospitals in Brazil, an analysis of the imaginary created around the madness and a study of the representation of the social roles (family, doctor and nursing team) involved in the process of hospitalization of ill and supposedly mentally ill patients, as well as the interests of the institutions. The research is based on theories of social imaginary, therefore the main theoretical authors that support the dissertation are Michel Maffesoli, Bronislaw Baczko and Cornelius Castoriadis. The philosopher Michel Foucault brings us the historical perspective of madness. The research reflects the exclusion of people who had their image linked to the madness of social life. This dissertation is justified because there are few existent researches that approach the subject of madness, especially its representation in the social imaginary.