In Search of the Unknown Self: Wandering, Love and Subjectivity inThe Tale of the Unknown Island, br José Saramago

amor e subjetividade errante em O conto da Ilha Desconhecida, de José Saramago

Abstract

In novels, short stories, chronicles and travel books, José Saramago writes about the theme of travel on a recurring basis. From a philosophical perspective, one can immediately perceive the theme as a reflection on man and his journey in the world. The journey of life, of being, of “being-in-the-world” (Heidegger). In a double interpretation, the journey can also be read as a journey of the text itself – a journey of writing, a journey of reading, traveling with meanings in motion, wandering like the traveler himself. In The Tale of the Unknown Island (1998), chosen for this work, the double reading of the journey as a theme is also crossed by the reflection on subjectivity. In the short story, the idea of ​​a subject given as a whole (which we could relate to the Cartesian subject) is put in check so that another model of subjectivity is presented, crossed by the encounter with the Other as an adventure, based on the loving relationship as presented in the text. Taking The Tale of the Unknown Island as an exemplary micro-narrative in Saramago's work, it is intended to show how the author poses the question of a subjectivity in process, which seeks its philosophical questioning outside of itself, in the other, and even in the writing. For this, mainly the ideas of Derrida and Blanchot will be important operators of text reading.