Cadavre exquis

Resumo

Vagão ´J´ is a novel which tells the age-old saga of the people of a village somewhere in Portugal; in this village there is a preponderance of the exploited, the old, the sick, women, young people: their destinies are marked from birth by servitude and exploitation. The originality of this work is not to be found in the stories of the characters, because they are always the same, but in the repeated use of language stereotypes. And it is through these linguistic stereotype processes – in a family/popular linguistic register – that the spectacle of the individual dramas and the social affronts are presented. This social collective is determined by its “verbal capital” which gives it legitimacy for its importance in the work.