MEU TIO, O IAUARETÊ”: THE THRESHOLD BETWEEN HUMAN AND ANIMAL

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of the short story "Meu tio, o iauaretê", by Guimarães Rosa, from a symbolic and philosophical perspective, highlighting how the narrative stages the fusion between human and animal, updates indigenous mythologies, and questions the boundaries of the human. The aim of the study is to examine how Guimarães Rosa, in this narrative, creates a literary experience in which language becomes a vehicle for metamorphosis, establishing what can be called "shamanic literature." The article is divided into five axes: Guimarães Rosa's aesthetic strategies; metamorphosis and becoming-animal; Amerindian perspectivism and the cosmology of the jaguar; the jaguar as a mythical figure; animality and philosophy: the human that dissolves. Each topic seeks to articulate Rosa's narrative with concepts of philosophy and anthropology, aiming to offer an interdisciplinary reading of the work. The basic theoretical scope includes the following concepts: the notion of "becoming-animal," by Deleuze and Guattari (1995); Amerindian perspectivism, by Viveiros de Castro (1996); mythical archetypes and symbolic systems, according to Lévi-Strauss (2004).