Abstract:
This dissertation investigates the role of literature in the construction of memory as a form of
resistance to trauma, through the character Pedro Naves in the novel No Fundo do Oceano, Os
Animais Invisíveis, by Anita Deak (2020). To this end, a discussion is built on literary
language and its proximity to the language of the unconscious, in an effort to interpret the
signs and metaphors constructed throughout the novel's narrative. The first part undertakes a
more detailed reading on the notions of memory and resistance, from the psychoanalytic
approach, seeking a synthesis based on the possibility of using them as means of literary
intervention in social traumas, more specifically that related to the Brazilian civil-military
dictatorship (1964-1985) in the context of the Araguaia Guerrilla War (1972-1975), as
represented in Deak's novel. The second part reflects on language, time, and the relationship
between Nature and Culture as represented in textual form, the novel's language construction,
and in which way the text is influenced by the narrator-character Pedro Naves himself. To
achieve this, the concept of Amerindian Perspectivism as developed by Eduardo Viveiros de
Castro (2018) is borrowed, reflecting on the possibility of using it to read Deak's novel.
