Empoderamento feminino no romance Senhora de José de Alencar

Abstract

This bibliographical research makes a literary analysis from the reading of the novel Senhora de José de Alencar, from the perspective of the Feminine Empowerment in the middle of the nineteenth century and in the feminine discourse in the masculine vision of the author (masculine voice), as well as the criticism of Brazilian society at the time that used the bridal dowry as a way to obtain advantageous marriage. For such an attempt, it has as theoretical base the types of discourses existing in the author, through the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. It also examines the social and cultural aspects of women in the historical context of the time the work was written and published and relates the importance of the odd work to the theme of empowerment and feminine emancipation. Thus the work of José de Alencar is presented to the society of the time, mainly to the society of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as an apparent novel, but raising an unpublished flag until then, coming from a writer already consecrated and much read. criticism and liberates the feminine self from one of the many existing moorings - that a woman can and should take her own destiny for herself. The role of women before society still with patriarchal remnants is repaginated, becoming totally innovative, unusual for a romantic work of the late nineteenth century. Firstly, aspects of the life of the author José de Alencar, the historical context in which the work is published, the origin and aspects of the dowry as a form of marriage negotiation, the role that the woman represented in the different social classes to which she belonged and the current situation of Brazilian women. In the analysis of the work and relevant themes, already mentioned, the following aspects are relevant: the author's sensitivity to the dowry / marriage problem; the appropriation of a feminine discourse of empowerment even in masculine authorship and the possibility of feminine emancipation even in a romantic context in which the woman personifies an idealization and not the lived reality. Precisely because it is an analysis of the social theme and that is still being constructed , recognized and valued, it is not intended to exhaust all the criteria relevant to the topic.