Distopia, desumanização, desterritorialização e dessubjetivação na pentalogia O reino, de Gonçalo Manuel Tavares

Abstract

This thesis is the result of an investigation into the dystopian universe built by contemporary Portuguese author Gonçalo Manuel Tavares in O reino – a pentalogy made up of the following titles: Um homem: Klaus Klump (2003), A máquina de Joseph Walser (2004), Jerusalém (2004), Aprender a rezar na era da técnica (2007) and O osso do meio (2020) – based on the realization of the loss of subjectivity and the dehumanisation of its characters, as well as their consequent deterritorialisation. Based on a theoretical framework marked by thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Walter Benjamin and researchers such as Márcio Seligmann-Silva, among others, issues such as the loss of individuality – the starting point for defining the identity of the various characters spread over the five volumes of O reino – the hypervalorisation of technique, the automation of production processes, the panoptic surveillance performed by the State and (or) organisations, the use of biopower and the various operations to dominate and subjugate the bodies, as well as the mechanisation of man and his relationships with the world around him, in a movement of dehumanisation and alienation of the subjects. To this end, an overview of the author's work as a whole has been presented in order to then analyse the pentalogy O reino from a theoretical standpoint that made it possible to promote the critical interrelationships between Gonçalo Tavares' poetics and the dystopian literary tradition.