The Educational Mechanism in the boarding schools of Mario Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero, Raul Pompéia's O Ateneu and Vergílio Ferreira's Misty Morning

Abstract

This article analyzes the educational mechanism implemented by the boarding schools in three novels – Mario Vargas Llosa's The time of the hero (1963), Raul Pompéia's O Ateneu (1988) and Vergílio Ferreira's Misty Morning (1954). The main objective is to examine the particularities of the coercive methods employed by the leaders of these institutions. This paper considers if these methods may be taken as variations of the same system of disciplinary control, which, using panoptic procedures, a routine of repetitive and rigorous exercises and a particular method of reward and punishment, aims to define the students' behavior, inducing them to such a level of alienation that assuages their autonomy and ability to question this system. The purpose of this paper also is to investigate, more specifically, the implications of the authoritarian and arbitrary attitude of these mentors for the protagonists' education, given that their priority seems to be to protect the school's image and their own interests.