Femininity and transgression: an interpretation of Lúcio Cardoso prose

• Grant number: 11/51818-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants - Publications - Books published in Brazil
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Cleusa Rios Pinheiro Passos
• Grantee: Cleusa Rios Pinheiro Passos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present study is dedicated to the interpretation of Lúcio Cardoso's prose (1912 - 1968) and it is guided by the feminine character, due to its constant presence and importance in the author’s works. The thesis stars with the main idea that the figure of the woman constitutes the expressive part of his artistic production. It is, at the same time, the question and the answer to understand Cardoso novels. At least three aspects contribute to this effect: the expressive number of feminine characters in the titles, the central place of the feminine, in parallelism with the option for the interiorize tension in the prose, and the femininity's influence in the course of the narratives. Lúcio Cardoso elaborates his texts on the dissatisfaction of the feminine characters, generating transgression; on women's evil behavior, aiming to the destruction of the status; and on multiplicity, linked with the non-definition of the feminine, creating a fiction full of ambiguity and misconceptions. The corpus was selected aiming to include a representative book of each decade (1930, 1940, and 1950) of Lúcio production. They are novels that, simultaneously, deal with recurrent themes and condense the period of time analyzed in the study. In this way, Mãos vazias (1938), Inácio (1944), and Crônica da casa assassinada (1959) constitute the first plan, with an in-depth textual analysis, and the other titles aim to develop intensive dialogues to approach them. The readings hadean supported by the intersection with the psychoanalysis and history always aiming to improve the interpretation of the literary text. (AU)