MONTEIRO LOBATO E A CRISE DO CAFÉ: O CAIPIRA NO CONTEXTO PRÉ-MODERNISTA

Abstract

This article aims to identify elements that form the concept of pre- modernism in Brazilian literary creation in view of the paradigm shift takes effect with the advento of the Primeira Republica and the beginning of its decline due the crisis that strikes the crops of coffee in Vale do Paraíba. Added to this situation is the precise observation of Monteiro Lobato’s narrative, specifically from the publication of the collections of short stories Urupês (1918) and Cidades mortas (1919), which mimic in their moments of greatest tension the relationship between man and land. This is due to the exhaustation caused by the monoculture of coffe and the adaptation of that culture to the lands of the West of São Paulo, contributing to the decay of a region that until then had lived its peak. In this context, lies the main aspecto of what Monteiro Lobato brings to the first moments of his work, when thinking about literature as a substitute from the social and economic conditions that have ther origin in the Braziilian backwardness. For this reason, he creates in his work the characters Zé Brasil, which was not more successful, and Jeca Tatu, the latter being the maximum representation of what he considers to be a state of destitution for the interior man.