The argumentation and the discursive configuration of certainty in A Casa dos Budas Ditosos

Abstract

The novel A Casa dos Budas Ditosos is presented to readers as the transcript of the oral testimony of a libertine sexagenarian, identified only by the initials CLB. In what is probably his most outrageous and controversial work, João Ubaldo Ribeiro creates a complex and provocative author/orator’s character, which seeks to seduce and exercise power through discourse. Because the testimony has a Strong argumentative dimension and a persuasive purpose, we seek to study in this paper how is characterized the rhetoric of this libertine. Thus, we care for the argumentative strategies and rhetorical devices employed by the narrator throughout the novel. For this analysis, we will use as a theoretical basis Aristotle's Rhetoric and contemporary works such as Chaïm Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's, as well as works on the semantics area, such as those of Bernard Pottier.