ABSTRACT
On two occasions Jonah’s course in life was given up to chance. When he ignored God’s call to become a prophet, he headed off on the high seas to an unknown land with a band of sailors he had never met. Then when their ship was about to go under in the violent storm, lots were drawn to discover the cause of their imminent disaster. In the Bible tale and in The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes, Jonah faced peril at the high seas and after being exposed to salt water and the chemicals in the belly of a whale, he is exposed to the desert sun when his leafy gourd plant instantly withers. So too, Scliar’s characters expose themselves to nature. In short, the central experiences of Jonah’s life are exposure and expulsion just as they are the central experience of the characters in two of Scliar’s novels: The Volunteers and A estranha nacao de Rafael Mendes.
