Dissident Desires: Race, Sex and Abolition in 19th Century Brazilian Literature BY Lamonte Aidoo B.A., Lincoln University, PA., 2007 A.M., Brown University, 2011 A dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island May 2012 Copyright 2012 by Lamonte Aidoo This dissertation by Lamonte Aidoo is accepted in its present form by the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date _____________ ______________________________ Nelson H. Vieira, Director Recommended to the Graduate Council Date _____________ ______________________________ Luiz F. Valente, Reader Date _____________ ______________________________ Anani Dzidzienyo, Reader Date _____________ ______________________________ Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date _____________ ______________________________ Peter M. Weber Dean of the Graduate School iii iv VITA Lamonte Aidoo was born in Hartford, Connecticut. From 2004-2007, he attended Lincoln University, P.A. and graduated Summa Cum Laude with Bachelor of Arts degrees in French and Francophone Studies and Hispanic Studies. In 2007-2008 he was a J. William Fulbright Scholar in Bogotá, Colombia where he researched and documented Afro-Colombian urban displacement narratives. In 2011, he received a Masters of Arts in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Brown University. From 2008- 2012, he has been in residence at Brown University and is co- editor of the forthcoming Lima Barreto: New Critical Perspectives published by Lexington books. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing “Dissident Desires: Race, Sex and Abolition in 19th Century Brazilian Literature” has been an arduous and revelatory process. I would first like to acknowledge my advisor and readers that have proven indispensable in this process. My sincerest gratitude to Nelson H. Vieira for his constant feedback, belief in my ability and this project, and continuous support of my work, musings, and abstractions; Luiz FernandoValente for his passion and excitement for 19th century literature, insightful feedback, and the independent study that rendered the idea that became this very dissertation; Anani Dzidzienyo for his friendship, dedication and willingness to impart the many gifts of his knowledge that greatly influenced the very imagining and conception of this dissertation; Keisha-Khan Y. Perry for her wisdom, encouragement, professional/sisterly advice, and ability to challenge and expand my intellectual boundaries; Leonor Simas-Almeida for her courage to read literature “ beyond the margins;” Ama Ata Aidoo for her example, kindness and support; Daniel Silva for being more than a colleague; To the wonderful galera of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies for their camaraderie (Lauren, Isadora, Adi, Thayse, Lucas, Ben, Steve, Sarah, Josh, Linda, Sandra, and Brianna); Candida Hutter for the gift of her smile and friendship; Armanda Silva for her hard work that has not gone unnoticed; Valerie Petit Wilson for her encouragement, love, fearless vision and influence. To the late Tiffany Thigpenn for her friendship, love, and belief in the person I was to become. To my sister Lowanna for remembering that as a child I always chose books over toys. And finally, to my dear mother Peggy Thomas to whom this dissertation is dedicated, for her love, patience and prayers. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page .........................................................................................................................i Copyright page .................................................................................................................ii Signature page ..................................................................................................................iii Vita ...................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................v Table of Contents .............................................................................................................vii Introduction: Unveiling a Myth—Excavating a Body ....................................................1 Chapter 1: Evicting the Black Body: Domestic Allegory of Interracial Desire in ..........12 Artur de Azevedo and Urbano Duartes’s O Escravocrata Chapter 2: Desire Disavowed: Critical Re-membrance, Belonging and the Abject Pornography of Torture in Aluísio Azevedo’s O Mulato ................................................58 Chapter 3: Predatory Perversions: Same Sex Desire, Prostitution, and the Emancipation Body in Adolfo Caminha’s Bom Crioulo .......................................................................117 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................169 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................173 vii Dissident Desires: Race, Sex and Abolition in 19th Century Brazilian Literature Introduction Unveiling a Myth—Excavating a Body These undecipherable markings on the captive body render a kind of hieroglyphics of the flesh whose severe disjunctures come to be hidden to the cultural seeing by skin color. We might well ask if this phenomenon of marking and branding actually "transfers" from one generation to another…? —Hortense J. Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe" And all of those associations to the internalized world of human sexuality are now projected onto the sexuality of the Other. —Sander L. Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness In his seminal text Casa-Grande & Senzala, Gilberto Freyre foregrounds one of the most detailed and contemporaneous genealogies to date of the development of race relations in Brazil. Freyre’s text articulates how the evolution of race in Brazil was tantamount to the evolution of national identity and the enunciation of what has now come to be known as the myth of racial democracy. Although Freyre most certainly is not the founder of this concept, however, he unquestionably is credited for its popularization and eventual internationalization. At the core of Freyre’s conceptualization of the myth of racial democracy, is that Brazil was founded and fashioned upon miscegenation, or race mixture; as such, this mixture of blood and origins was positioned as a disavowal of racial discrimination, racial prejudice and a testimony to harmonious race relations. Time and research however, have rendered another account, exposing the reality of the insidious racial inequality that has permeated the core of Brazilian history and social structure. Historian Thomas E. Skidmore's Black into White, a revisionist study of Brazilian race relations, 1 argues that the predominantly white elite within Brazilian society promoted racial democracy to obscure very real forms of racial oppression.1 Political scientist Michael Hanchard, equally has contended that the ideology of racial democracy, often promoted by state apparatuses, prevents effective action to combat racial discrimination by leading people to ascribe discrimination to other forms of oppression and allowing government officials charged with preventing racism to deny its existence a priori. 2 Yet the myth of racial democracy prevails as the most perdurable myth that has defined Brazil as a nation. My interest in this myth abides not entirely in its seeming perdurability but, rather its tenacious nexus, or collision between the practice or act of interracial sex and the imperatives of nation building. I am intrigued by where within the nation building project sexual coercion become romanticized and concomitantly mythologized into what Boaventura de Sousa Santos in his critical essay “Between Próspero e Caliban” has sardonically called a “harmonious reciprocal elision.” The fruit of this union, he informs us—the mulatto “contributed to against their will and own interests to legitimize racial and social inequality. To deracialize social relations, permitted colonialism and Brazilian politics to uncloak blame and to effectively produce social inequality” (Santos 20).3 Gerald Bender in his analysis of racial democracy and lusotropicalist rhetoric equally informs us that: 1 Skidmore, Thomas E. Brazil, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. 2 Hanchard, Micheal. Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945- 1988. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. 3 Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. “Entre Prospero e Caliban: Colonialismo, pós-colonialismo e inter-identidade.” Maria Irene Ramalho e António Sousa Ribeiro (eds.). Entre Ser e Estar: Raízes, Percursos e Discursos da Identidade. Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 2001. 2 The Portuguese colonizer, basically poor and humble, did not have the exploitive motivations of his counterpart from the more industrialized countries in Europe. Consequently, he immediately entered “into cordial relations” with non-European populations he met in the tropics. The ultimate proof of the absence of racism among the Portuguese, however, is found in Brazil, whose large and socially prominent mestiço population is living testimony to the freedom of social