A IDENTIDADE DA MULHER NA OBRA PEDAÇOS DA FOME, DE CAROLINA MARIA DE JESUS

Abstract

This paper deals with Carolina Maria de Jesus' novel Pieces of Hunger, published in 1963. The study aimed to analyze the female identity, especially of the woman in contemporary society and the ills surrounding this character reflecting on the mendacity through which a desireless and distant minority of human problems is filled by the hunger and the widespread misery and the inherent conflicts. Carolina Maria de Jesus, in this case, presents to the reading public, through this work, a female figure, apparently submissive in a society based on the prerogatives of patriarchy. Likewise, the author discusses the various social roles played by the representation of women in the corpus. The present inquiry made an analysis turning the attention to the construction of the feminine identity of the protagonist Maria Clara, in her social role of woman and wife, investigating the intertwining of the expression of the interiority to the unveiling of the conflicts between the individuals and of those with the modern world, apparently void of values and full of arbitrariness, beyond the clash between obedience and imitation of performances historically instituted as immanent to the female gender and the rejection of these postures. This work intended to examine female identity in the Carolingian novel through theorists such as Bauman (2005), Hall (2005), Machado (2006), Schwantes (2006), Zolin (2005) and Butler (2003).