The aim of this paper is to present a discursive-argumentative analysis of the novel The Country of Carnival, by Jorge Amado, focusing on the categories of reported speech and discursive ethos. It is assumed that the novelist's ethos is built on the dialogue between "his" discourse and the ideological positions and values of the speech of other. Thus, the concept of reported speech postulated by the Bakhtin Circle is articulated with the concept of enunciative heterogeneity formulated by Authier-Revuz, in order to understand the mechanisms of construction of the discursive ethos: a way of saying and being socio-historically recognized that legitimates the inscription of the discourse in a particular discursive formation. Therefore, it is intended to infer the ideological positioning of the author Jorge Amado in the controversy among the discourses which attempt to explain the meaning of life in The Country of Carnival.
Reported speech; Ethos; Novel; Jorge Amado