O birdso do afeto: a violated motherhood did not tell Aramides Florença

Abstract

Women (2017), by Conceição Evaristo, in light of Lacanian materialism proposed by Slavoj Žižek, with special attention to the intersections between gender, race and symbolic violence. Starting from the category of escrevivência, created by Evaristo, a research investigates how the narrative tensions the naturalized discourses on motherhood and romantic love, revealing its oppressive implications on the body and desire of black women. The general objective is to understand how motherhood, idealized as a space for affection, becomes a mechanism of control and violence in the context of a relationship governed by patriarchal structures. The specific objectives include: (1) identify the forms of violence present in the narrative according to Žižek's categorization (symbolic, objective and subjective); (2) articulate these forms in the instances of the Lacanian triad (Symbolic, Imaginary and Real); and (3) analyze how the experiences of the Aramides personage reflect the impositions of gender and race in emotional and family relationships. Methodologically, it is a qualitative research, of an interpretative and bibliographic nature, which articulates literary criticism, Lacanian materialism and gender and race studies. The theoretical foundation is based on the writings of Slavoj Žižek (2010, 2014), Judith Butler (2018), bell hooks (2018), Pierre Bourdieu (2010). The results indicate that there is evidence of a path of transformation of emotions in oppression, revealing the existence of motherhood when it is lived outside the logic of male desire. The violence suffered by Aramides — physical, symbolic and emotional — is interpreted as a symptom of a system that marginalizes the autonomous exclusion of black women, dehumanizing their maternal experience. As a perspective, the article suggests expanding two studies on the representations of black motherhood in contemporary literature, articulating narratives of resistance to criticism of the symbolic structures that shape our affections. The relevance of the research lies in the contribution it offers to the fields of literary criticism, two psychoanalytic studies and intersecting theories, to promote a reading that denounces and destabilizes normative discourses on gender, race and affection.