Seara Vermelha
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''Red Field'' (
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
: ''Seara Vermelha'') is a Brazilian
Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
. It was written by
Jorge Amado Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in ...
. It has not been published in English.


Background

Jorge Amado published ''Red Field'' in 1946. In 1945, Brazil had entered a period of “redemocratization” and Amado was elected federal deputy for
São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
as a candidate of the Brazilian Communist Party. He had long campaigned for the rights of political prisoners accused of being communists. He wrote ''The ABC of Castro Alves'', a biography of the poet from
Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...
, before going into exile in Uruguay and Argentina, where he researched the life of the revolutionary leader
Luís Carlos Prestes Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a Brazilian revolutionary and politician who served as the general-secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party from 1943 to 1980 and a senator for the Federal District from 1946 to 1948 ...
, which he published in 1942 as ''
The Knight of Hope ''The Knight of Hope'' or ''The Life of Luis Carlos Prestes'' (Portuguese: ''O Cavaleiro da Esperança'' ''ou Vida de Luis Carlos Prestes'') is a 1942 book by Jorge Amado, a biography of the well-known Brazilian revolutionary Luis Carlos Prestes ...
''. Red Field is dedicated to Prestes and it includes bits of verse by Castro Alves and a quotation from Prestes himself. The novel is highly political, a feature of the early phases of the author's work, but unlike most of his novels, the action does not take place in the city of
Salvador Salvador, meaning "salvation" (or "saviour") in Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese may refer to: * Salvador (name) Arts, entertainment, and media Music *Salvador (band), a Christian band that plays both English and Spanish music ** ''Salvador'' ( ...
or in the cocoa growing areas around Ilheus. The hinterlands of the Northeast of Brazil are the setting for the often bloody disputes between landowners and their workers. Seara Vermelha was published by Amado in the final year of the Brazil's Estado Novo regime, a regime under the presidency of Getúlio Vargas. The regime was known for its authoritarian, anti-communist and anti-left wing stance. During the Vargas regime, Brazil underwent agricultural reform and ́'varguistá' ́ legislation. The reforms followed the international economic crash of 1929 and the devaluation of coffee exports. The Vargas regime wanted to produce more economic wealth and production from the Brazilian agricultural sectors instead of relying on external help, especially in the south such as Rio Grande Do Sul, and the north such as Paraíba. However, the regime left the north-east (the setting of this novel) relatively untouched by reform and development due to fear of resistance as it was an established area of support.LINHARES, CARLOS TEIXIRA DA SILVA, 1999, p.129. The Vargas regime internalised control over the farms and production, essentially moving executive power to the cities, but also resisted to modernise the structure of countryside economy in favor of the large traditional farm estates and wealthy landlords. Especially in north-eastern Brazil, the agricultural reforms seen under Vargas without doubt caused a ́ ́questão agrária´´(agricultural question) within the academic and political sphere at the time of the writing and publication of 'Seara Vermelha' ('Red Field') . Especially as the contrast between wealth and quality of life for those in the cities and for those in the countryside became ever more apparent, and the toil and suffering under poverty for the rural worker only continued. As for the political context of the text, author Jorge Amado wrote it at the time of being the federal deputy of the Communist Party in Brazil. Furthermore, the text was written during other major the geo-political contexts of the 1930s and 40s, such as; the consequences of the Wall Street crash and the consequences of the Second World War leading on to the Cold War. These geo-political contexts led to deep political divides between communist and right wing conservatism ideologies, especially in regards to the idea of a growing capitalism in a new era. These divides and the 'communist versus capitalist' questions were omnipresent within Brazil and its agricultural sector at the time of publication of this book, and were certainly urgent in the mind of Amado.


Plot

The lands on which Jerônimo and Jacundina have worked for 20 years change hands, and the new owner expels the settlers. They decide to head for work in the coffee plantations in
São Paulo state SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...
, taking with them two of their children, three grandchildren, and two of Jerônimo's brothers and their families. Red Field is about the struggle of the displaced for decent conditions and a place to sleep. The travellers suffer from a lack of food and the harshness of the landscape. Half-starved, they finally reach the banks of the
São Francisco River The São Francisco River (, ) is a large river in Brazil. With a length of , it is the longest river that runs entirely in Brazilian territory, and the fourth longest in South America and overall in Brazil (after the Amazon, the Paraná and t ...
, from where they plan to continue their journey by boat. But only four eventually reach the coffee plantations, the rest dying on the way. Those who choose to remain on the arid Northeast plains of Brazil try to get by as best they can. One of the three remaining sons becomes a soldier, one a hired gunman, and one joins the Communist Party. As such, ''Red Field'' points to the different alternatives, some more extreme than others, that are open to the people of remote and poor areas: leave, take up religion or crime, or take up revolutionary struggle. A movie of the same name based upon the novel was released in
1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
. Seara Vermelha primarily explores the themes of suffering within poverty. Amado also explores the idea of nature and the inhospitality of the Brazilian north eastern wilderness and landscape through which the characters must travel to search for a better life in São Paulo. Finally the theme of revolution and consistent suffering in hopes for a better life in the future is consistent throughout the entire text. The idea that the Brazilian countryside is a place of exhaustive struggle, revolt and pain are clear to interpret, yet Amado also incorporates the importance of the sense of community and loyalty within the context of the rural struggle. These are the ideas upon which the text is constructed. Clearly the book is promoting an anti-capitalist, and anti Estado Novo stance and also painting a socialist picture of communal revolt in the context of economic hardship for the peasant worker.


References

{{Jorge Amado 1946 Brazilian novels Novels by Jorge Amado Portuguese-language novels