The protagonist’s discourse in Juliano Pavollini by Cristovão Tezza: a parallactic structure?

Abstract

The narrator of Juliano Pavollini is autodiegetic, which means its voice assumes the representation of all textual aspects; however, this narrator is not omniscient, for he has a limited vision of the facts and, moreover, he reenacts its moments of surprise. This Juliano-narrator expresses himself in a highly elaborate language, mastering formal speech. There are also moments when the narrative voice is representing the Juliano-character, whose interventions are shown as the dialogues in direct speech. There is a hiatus between these two discourses: the first is sophisticated and manipulative, whereas the second should express a naïf Juliano dealing with a reality ‘bigger than him’, so to speak. It may be assumed that this hiatus was calculated in order to have an effect over the reader and the narrative structure; this article seeks to investigate what effects it has on the text, using the concept of ‘parallax view’ as proposed by Žižek.