Hierarquia e poder em Dona Guidinha do poço de Manoel de Oliveira Paiva

Abstract

The Brazilian novel Dona Guidinha do Poço, by Manuel de Oliveira Paiva, is a narrative that involves, besides passion and death in a love triangle, social, economic, and cultural factors of the Brazilian Northeastern backlands. The work contemplates a sphere of subjects about a given historical reality and uses a regional language that praises the northeastern culture. A prominent issue in the novel is social inequality and the concentration of power in the hands of a female figure (Margarida/Guida), breaking with some 19th-century paradigms that observed the exercise of power in the male orbit. Major Joaquim, the husband, is shown from the perspective of social and economic dependence before Guida, the mighty lady. The work analyzes how Guida assuages her husband and others who live under her aegis in this novel by Paiva. In addition to other authors, this research uses the observations of Lúcia Miguel-Pereira to situate the writer in the Brazilian canon. To apprehend the novel in the literary and sociological sphere, concepts such as nucleus and nebula, borrowed from Roberto Reis (1987), and "rabble," coined by Jessé Souza (2017) serve to assist how the hierarchy and devaluation of the less fortunate in Brazilian society works. The reflections here show that the concentration of power has historically almost always been linked to wealth accumulation, and the personal leadership profile has often been attributed to the white or socially ennobled man. In this aspect, the woman in the 19th century lived under male chauvinistic and patriarchal submission and total devaluation as a person in society. However, in the novel, the woman was placed as a singular exponent, occupying power. On the other hand, the man is presented as subordinate, thus making the inversion of social values of the time.