“There was no God for her or the other poor people”: Hunger in Liam O’Flaherty and Graciliano Ramos

: This paper aims to perform a comparative study of the representation of hunger in Liam O’Flaherty’s Famine (1937) and Graciliano Ramos’s Vidas Secas (1938). The first novel, published in Ireland, takes place during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852), in which about one million people died. The second novel, published in Brazil, is set in an undetermined Brazilian region where drought induces hunger and rural exodus. The works, although published in different countries, present similarities and differences in the representation of hunger, especially the period of publication, the narrators’ position, and the abjection of the hungry body (Kristeva, 1982). While Vidas Secas adopts an objective narrative, highlighting the protagonists’ lack of communication and rusticity, Famine takes an engaged perspective, holding governmental and religious entities responsible for the tragedy. Both works underscore the vulnerability of the poor in the face of repressive forces from dominant classes, emphasizing resistance as the only weapon of the underprivileged. Beyond physical hunger, the novels emphasize the need for political, social, and cultural nourishment for the disadvantaged, illustrating that oppression not only results in material deprivations but also in social exclusion that silences and disempowers the less fortunate.

Palavras-chave: Liam O'Flaherty; Graciliano Ramos; Literatura comparada; Fome.In his influential work A Geografia da Fome [The Geography of Hunger] (1968), Josué de Castro (1908Castro ( -1973) ) delineates hunger as a pervasive phenomenon with global ramifications, impacting all continents.Castro posits hunger as a manifestation of societal maladies, asserting it to be the "biological expression of sociological ills" (Castro,p. 5,my translation).This characterization elucidates hunger as an outcome of intricate social and economic factors, notably influencing food distribution mechanisms and the purchasing power of communities.
The universality of hunger as a motif pervades world literature.As argued by Delville and Norris (2017), hunger emerges as a narrative trope that challenges entrenched Western ideologies, including the conception of the autonomous body, capitalist consumption paradigms, and immediate stimuli.Within literary discourse, hunger transcends its mere physiological implications to become a potent instrument of protest, with the hunger-stricken body symbolizing acts of ideological defiance (Delville and Norris,p. 2).
Hunger emerges as a recurrent motif within the literary landscapes of both Ireland and Brazil.In Ireland, the historical backdrop of the Great Famine (1845-1852) has inspired a plethora of historical novels since the twentieth century.Similarly, in Brazil, the cyclic occurrences of hunger, often intertwined with drought periods in the North and Northeast regions, have served as fertile ground for fictional exploration since the nineteenth century.This article endeavors to conduct a comparative examination of hunger's thematic reconfiguration in two seminal novels: Famine (1937), by the Irish author Liam O'Flaherty , and Vidas Secas (1938), by the Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos (1892Ramos ( -1953)). 1 O'Flaherty's novel unfolds as a historical narrative set amidst the Great Famine of the nineteenth century, focusing on the trials of the Kilmartin family, native to the fictitious village of Black Valley in Western Ireland.The Kilmartins, smallholders whose meager plot of land is leased from an Anglo-Irish landlord, find themselves ensnared in a web of destitution when their potato harvest succumbs to blight.Subsequently, they and their compatriots are thrust into dire straits, grappling with the inadequacies of public relief measures and the callousness of the ruling elite.Famine stands as O'Flaherty's masterpiece, acclaimed by literary scholars as his most eminent work (Sheeran, 1976).
In contrast, Vidas Secas unfolds as a narrative chronicling the plight of a family of Northeastern migrants, comprised of Fabiano, Sinhá Vitória, their two sons -simply called Older Boy and Younger Boy -and their faithful canine companion, Baleia.The novel refrains from specifying the temporal setting or geographic locale, thereby capturing the cyclical oscillations between drought-induced scarcity and intermittent abundance endemic to the Brazilian hinterlands.Anchored within the "Romance de 30" [Novels from the 30s] movement, characterized by its unfiltered portrayal of reality, Vidas Secas epitomizes a raw and unflinching scrutiny of societal conditions, aiming to incite critical introspection among its readership (Bosi,p. 416).Graciliano Ramos's masterpiece stands as a cornerstone of the Brazilian literary canon, engaging scholars and enthusiasts alike in ongoing literary debate since its inception.This article employs thematology analysis as its methodological framework.Published with a one-year interval between them, the novels under examination exhibit a plethora of intersecting and diverging thematic trajectories in their depiction of hunger.These include the temporal context of publication, narrative perspective, and, significantly, the portrayal of abjection.Consequently, the study endeavors to dissect these thematic strands across both literary works, employing selected textual excerpts as analytical focal points.
A critical period: the years 1937 in Ireland and 1938 in Brazil The publication of Famine and Vidas Secas coincides with periods of profound crisis both domestically and globally, emblematic of the tumultuous socio-political milieu prevalent during the 1930s.The epoch is characterized by the reverberations of the Great Depression and the looming specter of the Second World War, casting a pall over the global economic landscape.
In Brazil, the year 1937 heralded the advent of the Estado Novo regime under Getúlio Vargas (1882Vargas ( -1954)), an authoritarian dispensation that persevered until 1945.Concurrently, 1938 witnessed the grisly denouement of Lampião and his cohort, their execution and public display of their severed heads in Sergipe marking a watershed moment in Brazilian history.
Brazil and Ireland both grapple with agrarian economies during this period, albeit with different development trajectories.Brazil's industrialization prompts significant migration from rural areas to urban centers, leading to urbanization.Conversely, Ireland, in its early stages as an independent nation, faces poverty and high unemployment (Barry and Daly, 2011) resulting in waves of Irish emigrants seeking better opportunities in distant countries such as the United States, England, Australia, and Canada.
During this epoch, world literature assumes a resolute stance of condemnation towards prevailing social maladies.In Brazil, the advent of the neorealist novel signals a pronounced shift towards the portrayal of the "common man" (uomo qualunque), a figure who epitomizes the ordinary populace and grapples with both internal strife and external adversities.As delineated by Alfredo Bosi, The "raw" or "brutal" character of this new realism of the twentieth century corresponds to the level of effects that its prose aims to produce in the reader: it is a novel that analyzes, assaults, and protests.To achieve this goal, however, an entire reorganization of narrative language was necessary, giving the realism of Faulkner, Céline, or Graciliano Ramos a profoundly original aesthetic appearance.(Bosi 416,my translation) Throughout this era, the novel emerges as a poignant vehicle for interrogating the recent societal transformations and their reverberations on interpersonal dynamics.This sentiment finds resonance in Famine, a neorealist historical novel characterized by its vehement tone of indictment.O'Flaherty's narrative stands in stark opposition to the romanticized ethos of the Gaelic Renaissance, eschewing idealized portrayals of the Irish peasant in favor of a mode characterized by what Seamus Deane terms "vindictive realism" and "wild naturalism" (Foster 156).Post-Civil War (1921-1923) Irish fiction similarly repudiates the tenets of romantic nationalism, foregrounding instead the inherent violence underpinning nationalist ideologies within the political and cultural spheres (Vance, 2006).The narrator's critiques in Famine can be considered reflections of the author's own perspective, with O'Flaherty attributing culpability for the Great Famine to a nexus of actors including the British Government, local authorities, rapacious merchants, and the Catholic Church (Mikowski 150).
Similarly, the "Romance de 30" movement, epitomized by works such as Vidas Secas, imbues its protagonists with a palpable sense of existential unease amidst the confluence of natural and societal forces.According to Bosi, these novels exemplify a genre characterized by critical tension, wherein the hero grapples with the relentless onslaught of social and environmental pressures (430).Graciliano Ramos crafts characters who embody a profound sense of anguish, emblematic of the pervasive oppression filling their experiences.Ramos's narrative prowess lies in his adept portrayal of humanity's profound sense of displacement within its milieu, with the language of his novels serving as a conduit for elucidating the ruptures between man and environment, bespeaking a palpable discontinuity (Bosi 431).
In Famine, the narrative foregrounds the palpable conflict between individual agency and societal constraints.As noted by Patrick F. Sheehan (1976), O'Flaherty's thematic preoccupation centers on the perennial struggle between the ostensibly boundless potential of humanity and the harsh, unyielding realities imposed by political, economic, and social forces, which precipitated the cataclysmic events of the Great Famine.The narrator assumes the mantle of an accuser, positioning himself as a vigilant arbiter intent on laying bare the manifold injustices pervading society.

Voices of hunger: the narrators of Ramos and O'Flaherty
Graciliano Ramos published Vidas Secas as a series of individual short stories, intermittently, throughout 1938.Ramos began this literary project shortly after his release from a ten-month period of incarceration in 1937, following charges of subversive conduct, although without formal indictment.The novel's structure, often described by critics as a "disassembled novel," consists of standalone chapters, capable of being consumed in any sequence. 2Nonetheless, Antonio Candido contends that Vidas Secas embodies a cohesive narrative thread akin to a "composition in rosary," wherein the episodic vignettes are intrinsically interconnected, forming an indissoluble narrative continuum (Bueno 649).Luís Bueno further elucidates this notion, underscoring the palpable impression of unity pervading the work, despite the absence of contiguous chapter sequences.Bueno posits that while the chapters lack contiguous coherence, they maintain a thematic continuity, thereby ensuring narrative cohesion (649).
Notably, Vidas Secas stands as Ramos's sole exploration of third-person narration.
The narrator maintains a dispassionate stance akin to a documentary filmmaker, avoiding emotional involvement with the characters in favor of a minimalist narrative approach focused solely on essential elements.Through the selective use of visual imagery, including vivid descriptions of colors, fauna, and flora, the narrator constructs the arid expanse of the novel's setting, alternating between panoramic vistas and intimate close-ups to evoke the desolate beauty of the dry landscape: The jujube trees spread in two green stains across the reddish plain.The drought victims had been walking all day; they were tired and hungry.Generally they did not get very far, but after a long rest on the sands of the riverbed they had gone a good three leagues.For hours now they had been looking for some sign of shade.The foliage of the jujubes loomed in the distance, through the bare twigs of the sparse brush. . . .The brushland stretched in every direction, its vaguely reddish hue broken only by white heaps of dry bones.Vultures flew in black circles over dying animals.(Vidas secas, 4, my emphasis) The use of colors in the passage authentically portrays the landscape, presenting vibrant hues without intermediate shades, thus accentuating the intense sun.The plain is described as "reddish," with patches of "vaguely reddish hue," interspersed with "sparse" vegetation marked by vivid "green stains," and punctuated by skeletal remnants that appear as stark "white heaps."This depiction, mirroring the landscape itself, avoids ambiguity, emphasizing the harshness of the environment with clear precision.Additionally, the dry riverbed and circling vultures, whose "black circles" foreshadow further death from the ongoing drought, adds to the tableau of desolation.The narrative description mirrors the aridity of the scene, avoiding unnecessary embellishments in favor of stark realism.
In Vidas Secas, the omniscient narrator assumes a multifaceted perspective, scrutinizing each character's thoughts and emotions, thereby crafting an immersive "expressive inner universe" for all (Candido 149).According to Candido, the narrator eschews the role of a mere mimetic interpreter, instead adopting the posture of a detached "prosecutor" determined to maintain a requisite distance, thereby fostering an aura of objectivity in his indictments.
The utilization of a multiple omniscient narrator in Vidas Secas may be attributed, in part, to the illiteracy prevalent within Fabiano's family and their consequent restricted vocabulary.Unlike a typical first-person or limited third-person narrative, the omniscient narrator abstains from directly reproducing the characters' speech patterns and interventions, thereby maintaining a level of detachment.Instances where the narrator does intervene, such as in the critique of Fabiano's attempts at expression, underscore the characters' linguistic limitations and rusticity (Vidas Secas, 65).Indeed, the characters' taciturnity serves as a poignant marker of their rustic existence, with the narrative suggesting that their capacity for verbal expression is severely constrained .The children, for instance, communicate primarily through grunts and sparse vocabulary, a reflection of their rudimentary linguistic proficiency.The narrator underscores this by likening their vocabulary to that of the family's parrot, which, devoid of utility, is ultimately sacrificed for sustenance: "[Sinhá Vitória] justified the act by telling herself the bird was quite useless--it didn't even talk.That wasn't its fault.The family was normally one of few words" (Vidas Secas, 6).
Similarly, in Famine a third-person narrative mode predominates, foregrounding vivid scene-setting and sensory descriptions.Natural phenomena, colors, odors, and sounds assume paramount importance within the narrative tapestry.For instance, the arrival of the devastating blight that ravages the potato crops is depicted with meticulous detail: . . .A rumour got abroad that the blight had struck in the County Cork.Would it come this far?Every day, they anxiously inspected the crop.But the days passed without any sign of the evil.The potatoes that were dug for food still remained wholesome.It promised to be a miraculous crop.Even Mary began to take courage.And then, on the fifteenth of July, the bolt felt from the heavens.When old Kilmartin came into his yard shortly after dawn on that day, he looked up the Valley and saw a white cloud standing above the Black Lake.It was like a great mound of snow, hanging by an invisible chain, above the mountain peaks.It was dazzling white in the glare of the rising sun. . . .Gradually, a sulfurous stench affected the senses of those who watched.(Famine,290,my emphasis) In Famine, analogous to Vidas Secas, the narrative palette avoids intermediary shades, favoring stark depictions of natural phenomena.The onset of the potato fungus is described as a menacing "white cloud" enveloping the valley, staining the foliage of the plantations with a somber brown hue, ultimately resulting in the putrefaction of the tubers and emanation of a noxious "sulfurous stench."While both novels evoke an atmosphere of oppressive nature, in Famine, it is the relentless and torrential rain rather than drought that portends ominous times.
The narrator of Famine assumes the task of delineating the profound helplessness pervading the populace, employing indirect discourse to delve into the characters' innermost thoughts and direct discourse to convey their spoken words.The characters, hailing from a larger community compared to the isolated family in Vidas Secas, exhibit a more varied vocabulary reflective of their diverse backgrounds and experiences.Furthermore, the narrative imbues the characters with vernacular expressions, snippets of Gaelic, and constructions of standard language, underscoring the multifaceted linguistic milieu of the community (Foster, 2008).Unlike the constrained vocabulary of the illiterate family in Vidas Secas, the characters in Famine possess a more expansive lexicon, enabling them to articulate the multifaceted impacts of hunger and societal upheaval.
In Famine, in stark contrast to the narrative style of Vidas Secas, the narrator assumes a more overtly interventionist stance, frequently interjecting with commentary on the prevailing historical milieu and casting blame upon those deemed culpable for the unfolding catastrophe.This marked intervention is exemplified in the following passage: When government is an expression of the people's will, a menace to any section of the community rouses the authorities to protective action.Under a tyranny, the only active forces of government are those of coercion.Unless the interests of the ruling class are threatened, authority remains indifferent.We have seen how the feudal government acted with brutal force when the interests of the landowner were threatened, even to the extent of plundering the poor people's property.Now it remains to be seen what that same government did when those poor lost, by the act of God, all that was left to them by the police and Mr. Chadwick -the potato crop which they had sown.(Famine,311) In Famine, the narrator assumes an actively engaged role, akin to a "compagnon de route" as characterized by Duarte (2018), aligning sympathetically with the oppressed and fervently denouncing the societal inequities that precipitated the famine.Through various interjections, the narrator unreservedly lays blame at the feet of entities such as the British government, the Catholic Church, Anglo-Irish landlords, and rapacious local merchants for their complicity in the unfolding catastrophe.This interventionist narrative stance positions the narrator as a vanguard of the proletariat, wielding the power of speech to articulate political grievances on behalf of the marginalized (Duarte, 2018).
While both Vidas Secas and Famine center on impoverished protagonists, their respective third-person narrators maintain differing degrees of narrative distance.In Vidas Secas the narrator adopts a stance of aloof detachment, whereas in Famine, this distance fluctuates, at times drawing closer to the characters' experiences and at others adopting a more distanced perspective.Graciliano Ramos presents the poor migrant as perpetually enigmatic and inscrutable, symbolizing the "otherness" inherent in their marginalized existence (Bueno 21).Conversely, Liam O'Flaherty's portrayal of the Irish small farmer aligns them as comradesin-arms, united by their shared social class and collective struggle for recognition.Ramos's work epitomizes the prevailing ethos of the Brazilian "Romance de 30," which champions the proletarian poor as its central protagonists and enlists the intellectual narrator as a vociferous advocate for social justice.Conversely, Famine emerges as a reaction against the romantic nationalism propagated by the Gaelic Renaissance, which valorized the Irish peasant as the embodiment of national identity.The political inclinations of the narrator in Famine veer decidedly socialist, echoing sentiments articulated by figures such as James Connolly, who attributed blame for the Great Famine squarely on England's doorstep (Connolly, 1910).

Abjection in Vidas Secas and Famine
Both novels illustrate that beyond the basic need for physical sustenance, there exists a profound requirement for political, social, and cultural nourishment.Oppression not only results in literal hunger but also generates social hunger, depriving the impoverished of voice and agency.Hunger renders both physical and social bodies abject, signifying their rejection and exclusion from societal norms.
Drawing from Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection (1982), it can be understood as the process through which individuals construct their subjectivity by establishing boundaries between the "self" and the "Other," thereby rejecting elements perceived as threatening to these boundaries.These elements include bodily fluids, excrement, corpses, and dirt, which cease to be considered part of the "self" and become relegated to the realm of the "other."Consequently, food, crucial for sustenance and survival, can become associated with abjection when it symbolizes the body's decay and impending death.
In this context, the hungry body assumes an abject status, symbolizing the potential for death and decomposition.It is perceived as contaminating life, embodying the existential threat posed by hunger.Through Kristeva's lens, the novels elucidate the multifaceted dimensions of hunger, transcending its physiological manifestations to encompass broader implications for individual subjectivity and societal marginalization (Kristeva,p.4).
The narratives of Vidas Secas and Famine are deeply marked by the specter of death as hunger reaches its most dire stages.In Graciliano Ramos's work, the depiction of the migrants' bodies evokes a sense of distance between the narrator and the characters.The bodies of the migrants are portrayed as contorted, hardened, and weather-beaten, exemplified by Fabiano's description as someone who "leaned first to one side and then to the other in an ugly, lopsided twist" (Vidas Secas, 16).The narrator accentuates the characters' disheveled appearance, highlighting their soiled and tattered clothing, as well as the wounds inflicted by the arduous journey in search of sanctuary: The dark spots of the jujube trees reappeared.Fabiano's step grew lighter; he forgot hunger, weariness, and sores.His rope sandals were worn at the heel; the fiber thongs had made painful cracks between his toes; the skin of his heels, though hard as a hoof, had split and was bleeding (Vidas Secas,12).
The portrayal of the characters' bodies as abject in Vidas Secas signifies a disruption of established notions of order, as posited by Kristeva (8).The descriptions of burnt and wounded skin, along with contorted limbs, serve to delineate these bodies as "other," requiring their rejection for the establishment of a coherent "self."Even seemingly mundane details such as the characters' clothing, described as "short and tight, and showed much patching" (Vidas Secas, 72), underscore the absurdity of their existence within the narrator's perspective, further emphasizing their displacement from the narrative space.
According to Kristeva, abjection stems not from "lack of cleanliness or health … but what disturbs identity, system, order.What does not respect borders, positions, rules" (8).The characters in Vidas Secas are depicted as abject to symbolize the erosion of subjectivity and the pervasive systems of oppression they endure.Fabiano, for instance, is dehumanized as he is reduced to something else: "he would always be just what he was now, a half-breed, ordered around by gentry, little more than a piece of livestock on another man's ranch" (Vidas secas, 21, my emphasis).This depiction suggests that he, and by extension his family, are condemned to a perpetual state of displacement and vulnerability, forced to flee eternally from the ravages of drought and societal indifference.
The theme of abjection is depicted with heightened intensity in Famine.The narrator consistently evokes sensory experiences, emphasizing smells, filth, excrement, disease, and the physical deformities wrought by poverty and hunger.Brian Kilmartin, for instance, is portrayed as an elderly individual with "only two yellow teeth" in his mouth, a "long and hooked" nose, and a "bony" face, lending him "a hawk-like appearance" (Famine, 8).The impoverished residents of Black Valley inhabit squalid conditions, with pigs and chickens residing within their homes, leading to spaces permeated by "the heavy odor of unwashed bodies and of human breath" (Famine, 44).
As the famine takes hold, even the depiction of the once-beautiful peasant woman undergoes a transformation, shedding her feminine attributes to resemble a man.This metamorphosis underscores the erosion of conventional gender roles and societal norms in the face of extreme deprivation.Through such vivid portrayals, the narrator accentuates the pervasive sense of degradation and despair that envelops the community, emphasizing the dehumanizing effects of hunger and destitution: Now [Mary] looked quite a virago.The imminence of famine had wrought a marked change in her countenance. . . .There was no similarity of features and her beauty was still as radiant as ever.But there was a similarity in the expression of the mouth and of the eyes.Her mouth had gathered together, somehow, like the first movement of the mouth of a person going to whistle.Her eyes seemed to be searching for something.They were never still.They were fierce, on the alert, suspicious.Her hands, too, were shifty, and it was pitiful the way she now grabbed at her food, tore it greedily with her teeth and looked around in an uncouth fashion while she ate. . . .Indeed, all five of them ate as if this were their last meal and as if some enemy were coming, hotfoot.to pluck the food from their lips (Famine,324).
The bodies of the emaciated children in Famine are depicted as equally abject.The narrator portrays them in animalistic terms, likening their gait to that of geese (Famine 86).Hunger drives the characters to desperate measures for survival, prompting behaviors that mirror primal instincts.In a harrowing example, Sally O'Hanlon, a neighbor of the Kilmartins, resorts to feeding her children dog meat before ultimately taking their lives: "'I had a right to put them out of their suffering,' Sally cried . . .'I couldn't let them lie there screeching with the pain and nobody to help them.Is it with the meat of a dog I would go on filling their mouths . ..?'" .This chilling portrayal underscores the profound impact of starvation on human dignity, reducing individuals to the most primal of impulses in their struggle to endure.
Encountering the lifeless bodies of the children profoundly traumatizes Mary Kilmartin, serving as a poignant embodiment of abjection.In this stark confrontation with mortality, hunger inexorably leads to death, and death, in turn, to the inexorable process of decomposition (Kristeva 3).The visceral reaction elicited by such a sight underscores the inherent horror of abjection, as it represents the ultimate confrontation with the fragility of human existence.Indeed, abjection functions as a psychological defense mechanism against the pervasive threat of pollution and contamination (Delville and Norris 5).By distancing oneself from the abject, individuals seek to safeguard their own sense of identity and integrity in the face of overwhelming degradation and despair.In encountering the stark reality of death wrought by hunger, Mary Kilmartin is forced to confront the fragility of human life and the grim consequences of societal neglect and indifference.
In both Vidas Secas and Famine, hunger emerges as a formidable threat precisely because it precipitates encounters with the abject.The narrative distance maintained between the narrators and the characters serves to accentuate the portrayal of their bodies and behaviors as abject manifestations, akin to those nearing decay.The vivid depictions of deformed, twisted, and dirtied bodies, often likened to animals, serve to underscore the inexorable deterioration brought about by physical hunger.Moreover, the narratives poignantly illustrate how social and political hunger, stemming from entrenched social inequalities, effectively entraps the characters within their marginalized and silenced social stratum.
The emphasis on the characters' physical deterioration serves as a stark reminder that hunger not only brings them closer to their physical demise but also perpetuates their social and political disenfranchisement.Despite the glimmers of hope presented in both narratives -whether through potential escape to distant lands or migration to more promising environments -such prospects are contingent upon the characters' ability to survive the arduous journey.
Ultimately, Vidas Secas and Famine illuminate the multifaceted dimensions of hunger, portraying it not only as a visceral struggle for sustenance but also as a pervasive force that corrodes both the physical and social fabric of individuals' lives.The narratives compel readers to confront the profound implications of societal neglect and inequality, underscoring the urgent need for collective action to address the root causes of hunger and its attendant afflictions.

Conclusion
In both Vidas Secas and Famine, hunger emerges as a manifold phenomenon rooted in physical, political, and social oppression.The characters, confined by their social class, find themselves relegated to a perpetual cycle of migration in search of survival.Far from being solely a consequence of food scarcity, hunger is depicted as a product of the avarice of the powerful elites who seek to uphold the existing social order.
The third-person narrators in both works serve as vigilant chroniclers of societal injustices, yet they engage with their characters in distinct ways.In Vidas Secas the narrator assumes the role of a detached observer, striving for objectivity in denouncing the plight of the poor.Conversely, in Famine the narrator adopts a more intimate stance, positioning themselves as companions to the characters, directly criticizing the agents responsible for perpetuating hunger.
The narrative distance established by the narrators underscores their respective social positions, as they confront the abject bodies of the characters, symbolic of their proximity to death and decay.In encountering the hungry bodies, the narrators are compelled to confront their own mortality in the presence of the Other.However, both narrators depict hunger as a phenomenon that dehumanizes the Other, reducing them to a state of quasi-existence, akin to animals.The abject body thus serves as a poignant symbol of the poor's deprivation, not only of physical sustenance but also of social justice.
A comparative analysis of Vidas Secas and Famine offers insights into the shared themes and divergent approaches employed by authors from Brazil and Ireland during the 1930s.
While rooted in distinct historical contexts, these works highlight the universality of hunger literature and invite further comparative studies across a broader spectrum of authors engaged with this enduring theme.Such comparative analyses not only enrich our understanding of hunger as a literary motif but also shed light on the socio-political dynamics shaping narratives of deprivation and struggle across diverse cultural landscapes.Notes 1 Vidas Secas has been translated into English by Ralph Edward Dimmick (Barren Lives, 1965).While the excerpts from the novel are from Dimmick's translation, I have chosen to refer to the novel by its original Portuguese title throughout this paper.