The Vampiric and the Urban Space in Dalton Trevisan's "O vampiro de Curitiba"

Dalton Trevisan, one of the preeminent short story writers of contemporary Brazilian letters, demonstrates a preoccupation with revealing the grotesque and horrific underside of modern urban life. Through an analysis of his works this paper attempts to demonstrate the vital link between the urban sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Rocky Mountain review of language and literature 1998-01, Vol.52 (1), p.13-26
Main Author: Gordus, Andrew M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Authoritarianism
Brazilian culture
Cities
Latin American literature
Oppression
Protagonists
Rape
Urban space
Vampires
Victorians
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Dalton Trevisan, one of the preeminent short story writers of contemporary Brazilian letters, demonstrates a preoccupation with revealing the grotesque and horrific underside of modern urban life. Through an analysis of his works this paper attempts to demonstrate the vital link between the urban space and representations of the vampire and the vampiric. Comparisons with nineteenth-century literary representations of the vampire reveal a fear and pessimism toward Brazil's emerging cities and towards the government's official project of modernization. Brazil's growing metropolises rather than curing its economic and social ills are shown to be replicating its authoritarian and feudal past on multiple levels.
ISSN:0361-1299
1939-9014
1939-9014
DOI:10.1353/rmr.1998.a459883