A selva como espaço de opressão e resistência: uma leitura social da Amazônia em Ferreira de Castro

Abstract

This paper analyzes the novel A Selva (1930), by José Maria Ferreira de Castro, from a historical, literary, and social perspective, emphasizing its role as a narrative of denunciation of human exploitation in the Amazonian rubber plantations during the Rubber Boom. The novel is interpreted as both a realistic and symbolic portrayal of the worker’s suffering, highlighting the aviamento system as a form of debt slavery and the Amazon rainforest as an ambivalent space of fascination and oppression. The study also examines the construction of the rubber tapper (seringueiro) as a marginalized subject, victimized by a predatory economic structure, linking Ferreira de Castro’s work to social critique and humanist realism. The analysis draws on theoretical contributions from Antonio Candido, Alfredo Bosi, Neide Gondim, Georg Lukács, and Roberto Schwarz, which illuminate the Amazon as a symbolic and historical territory of both domination and resistance. The study concludes that A Selva transcends its documentary character and acquires an ethical and political dimension, transforming literature into an instrument of denunciation and memory of the social inequalities that shaped the Rubber Boom in northern Brazil.