Sociology of law in "Os Bruzundangas": reflection about the traveling narrator and the social dimension of law in Lima Barreto

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of literature for the study of the Sociology of Law, via the work Os Bruzundangas of Brazilian novelist Lima Barreto. Lima Barreto's production stands out especially for this purpose in view of his militant literature, which is amplified in light of the realistic and autobiographical character imprinted in his productions, always combining the the collective struggle with the individual and the institutions themselves with society, a true social and practical dimension of law. To examine this dimension in Lima Barreto’s work, the paper presents a reflection on the traveling narrator of Os Bruzundangas. The paper indicates that this narrative focus makes it possible to articulate the realistic and autobiographical characters by incorporating the narrator's personal experiences, but, simultaneously, because the traveler is not the main character of the chronicles, this figure also allows the narrative of the paradoxes and tensions of the operation of Brazilian legal system in the First Republic. Moreover, the paper selects three chronicles that are part of the work for a closer examination of the social dimension of the law, namely: Constituição; Mandachuva e As eleições. The conclusive remark is to understand that Lima Barreto's vanguardism echoes as a privileged point of view of the social dimension of Brazilian law and, at the same time, represents an invitation for the study of the relationship between Sociology of Law and Literature.