Echoes of Madness: memory, exclusion, and resistance in Antônio Carlos Viana

Abstract

This article proposes an in-depth analysis of the representation of madness in the short story “Minha vó Inocência” (“My Grandmother Inocência”) by Antônio Carlos Viana, in light of contemporary debates on the limits of reason, memory, and forgetting in Brazilian literature. Guided by the trajectory of Inocência, the central character marked by experiences of exclusion, silencing, and progressive seclusion, the paper discusses the interconnections between madness, aging, and affective marginality. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Foucault, Fonseca, Eloésio Paulo, and other scholars working at the interface between literature and the psyche, the study explores how Viana’s prose challenges official narratives about sanity and generates hybrid, unstable, and powerful affective records within family life. The article also engages with recent studies that consider madness as a productive critical category for marginal literatures and for studies of trauma, social memory, and the aging body. It argues that the short story sustains a poetics of ambiguity and resistance, in which the experience of madness, far from being a mere symptom of decay, emerges as a liminal space — both of fragility and of the reinvention of relationships and identities. Finally, it examines the modes of constructing alterity and literary care, emphasizing the relevance of these discussions for contemporary literary criticism.