Women and fights in three novels by Carmen de Figueiredo

Abstract

This article is a brief study of three novels by Carmen de Figueiredo: Famintos (1950), Vinte anos de manicômio (1951) and Uma vida de Mulher (1950). The intention is to show that the author, who had two novels censored by PIDE, brought in her plots issues related to women’s sexuality that dialogued with the freedom and equal rights sought in feminist work. We justify our choice of corpus by believing that Carmen de Figueiredo went beyond the aspects and characteristics of Neorealist aesthetics by creating female profiles that broke with the most typical of the time. Female sexuality, women facing the difficulties of entering the job market, the authoritarian self-indulgence of men always taking precedence over female pleasure are some of the themes of her works. The novelist not only registered herself as an author who intellectually dialogued with the demands and agendas of feminist groups, but she also managed to make her novels circulate and spark some debates. The research presented here uses, for theoretical and critical support, Gayatri Spivak (2010), Antônio de Pádua Dias Silva (2011), Manuela Tavares (2011), Ana Bárbara Pedrosa (2022), Ana Flávia Oliveira, among others.