Os limites da dignidade humana em as intermitências da morte, de José Saramago

: alegoria da morte na sociedade contemporânea

Abstract

The human conflict with his own finite nature is a topic as old as the awareness of his mortality. Death puts an end to an inevitable period that seems to be part of the nature of things. There is no medicine to avoid it, even if the scientific and technological progress appears to be the solution to the big problems that sometimes affect a calm existence and a constant happiness. Thinking about the death will be a form of learning how to live with the full knowledge of our human condition. Learning to live with the plain conscience that we are mortal and ephemeral beings who are constantly travelling around, should be understood as an opportunity for us to grow in dignity and fraternity. Through As Intermitências da Morte we understand that the humankind’s biggest dream – the achievement of the immortality – turns rapidly into its reverse. Instead of bringing pleasure, the end of death brings a nightmare. It leads to chaos, to disorientation, to confusion… We become aware that living forever would condemn ourselves to an eternal old age, unless the time stopped, and that will never happen. Employing masterly allegories, Saramago makes clear that we have to die if we want to live. Otherwise, our life would be unbearable. He shows us how death affects life and how death and life get together in a mutual and absolute dependency. He also allows us to analyse the behaviour when a man is facing that mystery. Not only is the romance full of comic episodes, irony, fable and tragedy, but it also offers us several meanings for the human being’s experiences. In his romances, Saramago explores the darkest and hiding places of the contemporary human being: the insanity, the destruction of democracy, the loneliness, the aggressions of the capitalist market in a country where the politics is submitted to the economy. The first becomes an instrument of the second. So, there is a fight between two asymmetrical forces which reduces the popular sovereignty to huge decadent machines. By bringing together life and death, the romance As Intermitências da Morte gives birth to a hymn to love, to music and to human life.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Cândido de Oliveira Martins (Supervisor)