Corpo, Trauma e Diáspora

A Agência Feminina nas Narrativas de Maryse Condé

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the sick and traumatized female body and its relation to agency in the works Desirada (1997), La migration des coeurs (1995), and Histoire de la femme cannibale (2003) by Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé. The analysis is based on the hypothesis that, although these characters face physical and psychological trauma, their bodies function as tools for negotiating power and identity. The study challenges the traditional view of passivity associated with bodily trauma, proposing that the body, even when affected by illness or violence, is not merely a reflection of suffering, but a site of action and resistance. In Desirada, the protagonist’s body is explored as a space for identity-seeking, directly tied to the trauma of maternal absence and displacement. In La migration des coeurs, Condé constructs the female body as a reflection of historical and cultural tensions, while in Histoire de la femme cannibale, the body symbolizes fragmentation and identity crisis, yet also the possibility of confronting these conditions. Condé offers an alternative view of female agency, where the body, rather than being a passive tool of oppression, is portrayed as a means of reorganizing power relations and subjectivity within a context of diaspora and colonialism.