Odorico Paraguassú and Jair Bolsonaro:: discursive pattern and subjection of bodies during health emergencies

Abstract

This paper reflects on the process of subjectification of bodies in the context of 'subjection', using the narratives of the political discourses of two characters: one fictional, Mayor Odorico Paraguaçu, and the other non-fictional, former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro. The historical-social and cultural context portrays the typhus epidemic in the fictional O Bem-Amado and the COVID-19 pandemic in the Brazilian reality, and the narratives of the speeches of these characters are analyzed in the light of the social and political condition of negationism, which highlights a process of standardization and regulation of bodies. Through a bibliographical and theoretical analysis that focuses on Law in Literature, we identified, following Judith Butler, the figure of a narrative ethos of 'subjection' of bodies, involving standardization and regulation on the condition of 'self' and 'being'. We conclude that, within a space-time demarcated by narrative verisimilitude between the political characters, a narratological matrix emerges that acts as a juridical subject. Through the repetition of narratives, this matrix imprints on human consciousness a pattern of social, political and cultural behavior and conduct to be followed, coercively bringing them closer to an ideal model of obedience. There is a structural narrative pattern in the authoritarian characters during the fight against disease, acting under a negationist condition, where they cultivate the rhetoric of 'differentiation' from the 'other', promoting the rejection of 'self' and the non-acceptance of the differences that surround them.