A operária submissa e a ilha distópica em Os Famintos, de João Grave

In 1903, a year of huge conflicts in the textile industry between the working-class and the factory owners, the journalist João Grave made his debut in the Portuguese literature with The Hungry Ones (Os Famintos), a novel where the action is set in a working-class patio and a weaving factory, in the city of Oporto. This novel, where ultra-romantic sensibility coexists with naturalistic sordidness, may be interpreted as a modern epic that tells the story of a young woman who lives in this patio and becomes a plaything of destiny.
In addition to symbolizing the lack of political awareness among female workers, the greatest victims of industrial capitalism and non-regulated labor, Luísa, the main character in this novel, hangs a solitary fight for her livelihood, and tries to overcome successive setbacks, such as life in a patio, her father’s untimely death, the hard work in the textile factory, strike, deprivation, begging, prostitution or alcohol addiction. In the end, the strikers stay in the patio, continuing to live under the same poor conditions; Luísa, who estranged herself from her colleagues' struggle, obeyed to power and dedicated herself to work, starts a better life outside the town.
Throughout four editions (1903, 1915, 1920 and 1927), the dystopia exposed in this novel survives the implantation of the Portuguese Republic and prefigures the “Estado Novo” status quo, a political regime in which Salazar will also diminish workers' associative activism, in order to maintain a more orderly and subservient proletariat. In short, the singular heroine in The Hungry Ones conveys an idyllic message: all working-class members can be happy should they respect power and fulfill all duties. In politically and socially unstable days, this is a feudal perspective of the polis, perpetually divided into rich and poor.