Manhã Submersa di Vergílio Ferreira: una lettura allegorica

Abstract

This article suggests a reinterpretation of Vergílio Ferreira’s novel Manhã Submersa (1954) as an allegory of Salazarism. By searching for those semantic isotopies that support this interpretation, it will be shown how what the author had to conceal through disguises, rhetorical and discursive strategies, to escape censorship. In reality, these elements are clearly traceable within the text: through the story of an individual who, metonymically, embodies the entire Portuguese population, Ferreira denounces the contemporary society and its suffocating atmosphere.