This article analyses how form and content are intertwined in the story My Uncle, the Jaguar
(1961) by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa. In the first part, I use the fourteenth episode of
Ulysses (1920), ‘Oxen of the Sun’, as an example of how language and form can convey ideas.
The next section deals with Rosa’s efforts to create a character-narrator who seems to be on the
verge of becoming-animal. The character’s transformation into a jaguar-like being is
ambiguous, seeming to be both psychological and behavioural. In this sense, there is no
evidence whether his metamorphosis is physical. However, the language of the narrative
conveys his transformation, transcending him from Portuguese to Tupi-Guarani, to an animal
snarling onomatopoeic language. To support my argument, I use a theoretical framework
derived from Animal Studies and Anthropological Studies as a means of giving a better
explanation of the variable cultural background concerning human-animal relationships.