A construção dos personagens secundários em "Os Maias": análise linguística de algumas metáforas

In his Introdução à Leitura d’Os Maias (1978), Carlos Reis locates in the 1888 novel by Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) several symbologies that play the literary role of anticipators of successive plot developments: from the scarlet-blood of Maria Monforte's umbrella, which points to Pedro's suicide, to the lilies that wilt in Maria Eduarda's house, as will also happen to her love with Carlos (REIS, Introdução à Leitura d'Os Maias, Coimbra, Almedina, 2006, pp. 93-94). In fact, the work presents a considerable figurative component, given by the very symbologies and metaphors that recur within the text. This work proposes to collect the latter, selecting those that the author refers to the secondary characters in order to compose a sadly comic picture of Lisbon's high society, destined to lead the country to ruin: thus, to Dâmaso Salcede Eça constantly associates verbs such as "estourar", "estalar" (QUEIRÓS, Os Maias, Lisbon, INCM, 2017, pp. 201 and 392); to the countess of Gouvarinho he relates the semantic field of withering when he writes that she has a "tom de folha de outono amarelada", and that the rustle of her skirt makes "um ruge-ruge de folhas secas" (Ibidem, p. 322); to Alencar, he attributes the isotopia of death, describing him as "face escaveirada, olhos encovados [...] em toda a sua pessoa havia alguma coisa de antiquado, de artificial e de lúgubre" (Ibidem, p. 201). Through the analysis of the elements that make up the metaphors and their linguistic formulation, it will be shown that, through them, the writer creates social types and reinforces, within the text, the image of a Portugal unable to meet modernity.