Projecting the past into contemporary times: the novel “Capitães da Areia” and the rights of children and adolescents in Brazil

Abstract

The article aims to analyze, based on the mixture of fictional aspects and real elements, present in the novel “Capitães da Areia” written by Jorge Amado, in the 1930s, the absence of rights for children and adolescents in the Constitution in force at the time. With the anthropological approach and a humanistic geography as a backdrop, the resistance of this social segment in the face of constitutional and parental abandonment will be discussed. Next, the constitutionalization of the rights to protect these individuals will be chronologically outlined, consolidated through the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil (1988) and the Child and Adolescent Statute – Law no. 8069 of 1990. The methodology basically consisted of the survey, reading and analysis of bibliographic sources such as articles, dissertations and theses that deal with the topic covered. In the final analyses, it was concluded that the reading of “Capitães da Areia” revealed itself as a projector of the past in contemporary times, unveiling the dilemmas that still persist regarding the rights of children and adolescents, despite the guarantees expressed in the Constitution.