FETISHISM AS THE POSSIBLE OF DESIRE IN THE INCESTUOUS AROMA OF O PERFUME DE ROBERTA, BY RINALDO DE FERNANDES

Abstract

Under the cover of medical sciences from the 18th and 19th centuries, the term fetishism was linked, as the name suggests, to a kind of spell, given the belief that the subject affected by this pathology would be “magically” seduced by an object, a person. or something, without any apparent reason being established with them. Although the notion of fetish had already been present since the Middle Ages, linked to the Latin adjective facticius, “fabricated” or “thing made”, the association as a term is credited to the French writer Charles De Brosses, based on the observation of religious practices common on the coasts of West Africa, commonly called by European travelers of the 16th and 18th centuries as a spell, gaining a degenerative connotation after its rescue, in 1887, by the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and, later, by sexology of the 16th century. XIX. Appropriated by Sigmund Freud from the initial moments of his theory of mind, fetishism remains a component of sexual perversions and paraphilias, but is also recognized as a multifaceted aspect present in the “normal” dynamics of human sexuality. In his short story O Perfume de Roberta, published in a collection of the same name, Rinaldo de Fernandes presents us with a protagonist who uses fetish as an argument to enable his incestuous desire. Using psychoanalytic theory as a theoretical framework, this article seeks to elucidate the perverse itinerary of Fernandes' character, so that the analysis of codes allows us to observe how fetishism points to plasticity in the way we deal with anguish, sexuality and incessant search for pleasure.