Novel's Success (Historical)

{Historical Events}

The period of 1960 to 1980 is worldwide characterized by an increasing number of female figures trying to be integrated into sociopolitical or literary environments that would be usually dominated by men. The female voice starts to be heard in novels of that time signalizing an official inclusion of women in politics and culture.

Gabriela is going to be crucial, even if not directly, in this context, since she represents the free sexual desire of women, of making their own decisions and living their own life without depending on patriarchy and male leaders. She can be considered a starting point for this process given that she is one of the few characters of that time that was represented with such strong and also particularly feminine characteristics, influencing female minds. Another important figure will be the African character in the novel. For that ethnicity to be represented in literature, many years of battles and historical changes had to happen. 

There's a clear idea that Brazil was for a long time a multicultural nation characterized by historical events resulting from a ruling colonial experience that, aside from its negative repercussions, also allowed the unlikely interaction of three ethnic groups in the same territory: European, African and Indigenous. It is a work that celebrates this multiplicity of backgrounds as a valuable characteristic without ignoring the prejudices and ethnic conflicts responsible for the permanence of social disparities in the Brazilian society.

So, although the novel Gabriela was endangered due to repression and regimes prohibiting and burning Amado’s books - as well as other technical conditions like obstacles created to the physical access of people and ideas to some countries - it was also conditioned culturally. By censuring certain material, populations were being conditioned to think a certain way, denying their own rights and who they were as a multicultural society (Brazil) or making these realities unknown and promoting distorted human values instead (Portugal).

Nowadays most of these obstacles have been surpassed and we can see this novel as a successful narrative from a historical, symbolic and mediatic perspective.

Sources

• Priscila Nayade Moraes Lima, “Paisagem de uma cidade cacaueira com mulher ao centro Gabriela, cravo e canela como romance histórico” (Environment of  cocoa plantations within a city with the woman at the center and Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon as a historic novel), Final Thesis (2014) accessed 14th November, 2020, https://bdm.unb.br/bitstream/10483/8692/1/2014_PriscilaNayadeMoraesLima%20.pdf