“I can give you nothing else but my blood”: an analysis of the construction of ethos

Abstract

In 1954, Brazil, then governed by President Getúlio Vargas, was undergoing a major political crisis. The military leadership and political opponents demanded the president’s resignation. However, before being deposed, Getúlio Vargas took his own life by shooting himself in the chest. To the Brazilian people, he left a typewritten letter that was found next to his body. The “testament letter”, as it became known, made clear the reason for the suicide and transformed Getúlio Vargas into a martyr and hero of the Brazilian people. Years after his fateful death, a second letter was made public, handwritten and much more concise than the first. While many believe that the handwritten letter is the true “testament letter”, no studies of this second letter have been found in linguistics. Thus, to fill such a gap, this work seeks to analyse the two letters and present the different linguistic-discursive strategies used by the author in the construction of ethos. As theoretical assumptions, we will use the framework of textual genre analysis proposed by Adam (2001) and some concepts of ethos proposed by Amossy (2019) and Maingueneau (2007; 2019). Our study proves how important the “testament letter” was in the construction of Getúlio Vargas’ image. It also shows that there are some significant differences in the linguistic-discursive strategies used by the author in the two letters. The martyr image is present in both letters. However, in the handwritten letter, the author constructs the image of someone who wants to be forgotten in his own country. In contrast, in the testament letter, the author builds the image of a hero who does not wish to be forgotten by the Brazilian people.