Duas irmãs: literatura, cinema e relações de gênero no espaço familiar

Abstract

In this study, we aim to study the novels A costureira e o cangaceiro (2009), by Frances de Pontes Peebles, and A vida invisível de Eurídice Gusmão (2016), by Martha Batalha, whose narratives have sisters as protagonists and which take place, respectively, between the decades of 1920-1930, and 1940-1960. Hereby, we also study its film adaptations: Entre irmãs (2017), directed by Breno Silveira, and A vida invisível (2019), with the direction of Karim Aïnouz. Taking into consideration the tradition that the fictional stories, which are about fraternal relationships, are stories about brothers who have a relationship which is marked by rivalry, it is observed, through the analysis of this study’s corpus, a different setting of representation in the contemporary fiction. It is about the current recurrence of literary and cinematographic narratives on the relationship among sisters, by the bias of affection and solidarity. Therefore, the focus of this survey is on the female representations, under the perspective of gender relations that pervade the family space which are shown in these fictions. Through this analysis, it can be noticed how this feeling of fraternity was built in a bond of strengthening, given the important topics that marked gender relations along the 20th century, and that run through these sisters’ stories. Among these issues, we highlight women’s silencing in a sexist and patriarchal culture, the traditional model of marriage and family’s social role, gender violence, feminism and sexuality. In order to guide the discussion that was developed in this study, there are considered: the theoretical studies of the adaptation (STAM, 2006), (HUTCHEON, 2013); the concept of “gender technology” by Lauretis (1994); the considerations on cinema and feminism by Gubernikoff (2009, 2016); the studies on women’s story (DEL PRIORE, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2016), (PINSKY, 2011, 2012); the understanding on patriarchy and gender violence by Saffioti (1987, 1994, 2015); the reflections on fraternal relationships undertaken by Psychoanalysis (BIRMAN, 2000), (KEHL, 2000), among other scholars. The presupposition that guides this investigative study, is the one the representations of the feminine, which are present, in the analyzed works, make it possible a discourse that problematizes the gender representations and that questions the roles that had been socially built to be exerted by men and women in the society. It is aimed, therefore, that this survey promotes reflections about the oppression suffered by women who had been (and are) silenced by the patriarchal norm, as well as on the possibilities of female protagonism in the periods represented by the narratives, under the aegis of a classicist, racial, patriarchal and sexist system.