“There was no God for her or the other poor people”: hunger in Liam O’Flaherty and Graciliano Ramos

Abstract

This paper aims to perform a comparative study of the representation of hunger in Liam O’Flaherty’s Famine (1937) and Graciliano Ramos’s Vidas Secas (1938). The first novel, published in Ireland, takes place during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852), in which about one million people died. The second novel, published in Brazil, is set in an undetermined Brazilian region where drought induces hunger and rural exodus. The works, although published in different countries, present similarities and differences in the representation of hunger, especially the period of publication, the narrators’ position, and the abjection of the hungry body (Kristeva, 1982). While Vidas Secas adopts an objective narrative, highlighting the protagonists’ lack of communication and rusticity, Famine takes an engaged perspective, holding governmental and religious entities responsible for the tragedy. Both works underscore the vulnerability of the poor in the face of repressive forces from dominant classes, emphasizing resistance as the only weapon of the underprivileged. Beyond physical hunger, the novels emphasize the need for political, social, and cultural nourishment for the disadvantaged, illustrating that oppression not only results in material deprivations but also in a social exclusion that silences and disempowers the less fortunate.