Manifesti i mosbesimit
The manifest of distrust

Summary/Abstract: In “Cain” Saramago transforms a disputable and negative religious figure into a positive literary character. Yet, in general Cain is described as an ordinary man, who by God’s fault compels fratricide, but knows how to be compassionate when he sees a child being murdered. This must be seen as central idea of the novel, through which the God’s figure is challenged while the one of man is enlightened, and this above all, gives the human inclinations to this novel. At the end, Jose Saramago in his novel “Cain” due to his consequent iconoclastic attitude has created a rationalistic platform against religious texts. In order to describe the absurdity of relations between God and people, the narrator, by closing an eye to the reader, suggests a distinction of the primitive from postmodern as it is supposedly saying “The history of the people is a history of misunderstandings with God, he doesn’t understand them and they don’t understand him”. In “Cain” the postmodernism reaches its peak, with all its components (irony, intertextuality, collage, double coding etc.), therefore this last book of Saramago, perhaps should be considered as the last postmodern novel against the religious metanarratives.

• Details
• Contents