Construir, desconstruir, reconstruir: percursos da voz, da memória e da identidade em Elvira Vigna

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the literary prose produced by the Rio de Janeiro writer Elvira Vigna (1947-2017), seeking to understand the female representation in three novels: Nada a dizer (2010), O que deu para fazer em matéria de história de amor (2012) and Como se estivéssemos em palimpsesto de putas (2016). The analysis is based on the postulation of the relationship between voice, memory, and identity and how the representation of these three aspects constitutes themselves as significant elements understanding the role that women play in the novel corpus of the study. In this sense, we establish four important categories as keys to read and understand Vigna's works: decentering, metalanguage, fragmentation, and palimpsestic memory. These categories, in addition to directing the understanding of the texts, are mechanisms for constructing the female representation proposed by the author. To this end, more than examining the construction of narrators and characters, we turn our attention to the singularity represented in each of these stories, capturing how the recreation of female roles marked by patriarchal thinking directly implies the reconstruction of identity. We will also observe to what extent Vigna's writing culminates not only in a proposal for reflection on literary work but also reveals to us new ways of writing and thinking about the contemporary and its connections with the past and future perspectives. Guiding us through interdisciplinary contributions, the novels that make up this investigation will be examined in the light of feminist and gender studies, represented by the thoughts of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Judith Butler (1956); the theories that deal with the construction of the act of narrating, as formulated by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940); and studies and research that discuss memory and identity, such as those developed by Jeanne Marie Gagnebin (1949), Stuart Hall (1932-2014), among others.