TABOO, VIOLENCE AND OPPRESSION: WOMEN'S LIFE IN AS MENINAS BY LYGIA FAGUNDES TELLES
As meninas. Lygia Fagundes Telles. Taboo. Patriarchy. Female protagonism.
The work As Meninas by Lygia Fagundes Telles published in 1973, tells the story of three young students who face their life dilemmas before a patriarchal and prejudiced society regarding the taboos present in their daily lives. The plot presents us an oppressive and violent scenario, typical of the Military Regime, which occurred in the period which the romance is taking place, but we can see that the most explicit violence in the book is present in the sexual abuse experienced by one of the characters, while oppression, in addition to being observed in the political scene, it is also intended to censor habits that, when considered taboo, face a prejudiced discourse that confronts the lifestyle of these characters who stage a story of female protagonism, a typical characteristic in the author's works. The objective of this dissertation is to carry out an analysis of the taboos present in the narrative and its developments on female characters, relating them to certain taboos created through traditions and customs from a patriarchal society. Bibliographic based search, uses authors such as Simone de Beauvoir (1967, 1970), Virginia Woolf (2019), Sigmund Freud (2012, 2013), Elizabeth Badinter (1991), Antonio Candido (2007), Jean Delumeau (1989), Mary Del Priore (2011), among others, as a theoretical reference for the accomplishment this study, which aims to dialogue with the concepts cited throughout the text. It seeks to emphasize the importance of debating about this theme, as a way to break with the paradigms that involve taboos. To this end, this dissertation analyzes literary figures that represent what many women experience, considering that even their own bodies are stigmas of a taboo.