O primado do poder ideológico no romance O Senhor Embaixador, de Erico Verissimo

Abstract

This article shows how Erico Verissimo, in O Senhor Embaixador (1965)—the first of his political novels — works with three types of power: economic, ideological, and political (according to Bobbio’s classification, 2003). In the novel, ideological power has the specific function of recognizing and understanding the other two. The general problem addressed is to understand how this novel represents and problematizes the maintenance of power, especially when state coercion and economic interests operate in combination. This theme is central to the work analyzed because it sheds light on mechanisms of domination, legitimation, and manipulation that permeate the narrative. The following scenes are examined: Leonardo Gris’s lecture at American University, Bill Godkin’s “notebook,” and Pablo Ortega’s account to Glenda, as he comments on her dissertation about the Republica de Sacramento. Accordingly, the article undertakes a critical-interpretive reading that brings together power theory (Bobbio, 2023) and an analysis of scenes, speeches, and the characters’ narrative functions. The results indicate that, in O Senhor Embaixador (1965), ideological power operates as unveiling and critique, functioning less as domination and more as a possibility of liberation by telling history “against the grain” (Benjamin, 1985).