Diversitas Journal (Jan 2020)

Quiet lives: the female voice in the work São Bernardo de Graciliano Ramos/Vidas caladas: a voz feminina na obra São Bernardo de Graciliano Ramos

  • Maria Claudicélia Curvêlo da Cordeiro,
  • Cristiano Cezar Gomes da Silva

DOI
https://doi.org/10.17648/diversitas-journal-v5i1-989
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1
pp. 660 – 679

Abstract

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This research aimed to investigate the representation of the female figure in Graciliano Ramos' work São Bernardo, specifically regarding the aspects of violence and oppression. In this sense, we sought to understand the representation of the feminine from the cultural bias of the time of publication of the work, emphasizing the factors of domination, submission, silencing and exercise of power over the female gender. To this end, the choice of this work as a research corpus was motivated by representing a complex, imposing female character who shares emancipating thought in the midst of a period marked by patriarchy. Thus, this study provided an interdisciplinary course from the areas of cultural studies, literary studies and feminist critique, contextualizing the historical period represented in the work. On the other hand, the novel also allowed us to analyze the trajectory of women, situating the impositions and restrictions through the preestablished roles of the culture and society of the period, as well as enabling the establishment of correlations with women and their role in contemporary times. During the investigation, it is possible to observe prejudice and inferiority marks faced by females, especially in relation to the functions imposed on social life, prevailing a hierarchy between males and females, emphasizing dependence and female submission. The research had as theoretical and methodological foundation the conceptions of Beauvoir (1980); Bosi (2007); Candido (2006); Friedan (1971); Geertz (2008); Hall (2006); Laraia (2009); Ortner (2017) Tedeschi (2008), Woolf (1928), among others. In this work, traits were observed that represented the aggressive and domineering character of men, as socially and culturally considered superior subject before women, idealized as the most fragile and auxiliary gender of men. Throughout the investigation, we noticed, in São Bernardo, the attribution of the inferiorization attributed to women. In this sense, scholars consider gender inequalities a reality that exists independently of the social group and in the most diverse types of society, and the way women are treated according to the time and culture in which they operate is varied.

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