Retired Dreams: Dom Casmurro, Myth and Modernity

by Paul B. Dixon

Retired Dreams explores this tension. Dixon identifies the quest myth, highly displaced, as the underlying narrative model and the shaper of the narrator's thinking. He devotes separate chapters to the function of time, to the rebirth motif, the role of matriarchy and patriarchy, the voyage motif and woman as anima, and symbols and primitivism. Particular attention is given to the role of the major tropes (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony) as devices permitting both the connection and the distancing between the tradition of heroic discourse and the domesticated, unheroic reality of the novel' characters. Through this rhetorical-mythic lens, the book examines many of the factors that have continued to fascinate both general readers and critics - the work's ambiguous plot and characterization its problematic ideology its self-conscious artistry and its cosmic vision.

150 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب مزعج بالمعنى الحلو للكلمة. الأسطورة والحداثة. حول رواية: دون كازمورو بتقعد جنبك بعد ما تقفلها وتسألك: انت عملت إيه في كل ده؟ Paul B. Dixon مش بيدين، بس بيكشف. فيه مقاطع محتاجة جرأة تتقرا. للي مستعد لمراجعة نفسه، وللي بيحب القراءة للتسلية فقط يختار غيرها.

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not gonna lie, Retired Dreams made me stay up way too late arguing with it in my head. Paul B. Dixon builds a bold case, then leaves a few holes you can drive a truck through. That's what makes it fun. Good for readers who like to push back, skip if you want a bulletproof argument.