Abstract

PEREIRA, Maria Eugénia. Dores dos Santos, Salome or the exaltation of the miracle. Diacrítica [online]. 2013, vol.27, n.3, pp.253-264. ISSN 0807-8967.

Dores dos Santos and Salomé are the names that José Rodrigues Miguéis has used to define the double identity of the female character in the novel Milagre segundo Salomé. Self-exiled from the world enveloping her, socially cast off, this woman develops in a complex manner, as if in her search for happiness and, consequently, for her own identity, promiscuity, licentiousness, and mysticism are perfectly combined with ingenuity, purity and reality. Dores dos Santos appears to wish to take on the traditional female role: born to suffer, she surrenders to a man to find what she believes to be happiness. However, it is with “the name for battles of fake-love” that Salomé reclaims human dignity, thereby finding true love: a prostitute in body, an angel in soul, the faith in a redeeming man who is able to rescue her through love, feed her soul and cleanse her heart. As embodiment of purity, Salomé imparts physical reality to the Virgin mother of God through the strength of her being and thus becomes the miracle of mankind.

Keywords : José Rodrigues Miguéis; O Milagre segundo Salomé; angel-woman / prostitute; the holy Virgin.

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