From the misogynistic language of rape to body-resistance in Brazilian literature

Abstract

In this study, we defend the imagery of harassement/rape as typical of sexist monolingualism, a set of codes that relativize violence against women. In Brasilian literature, we observe resistance to such codes through representation of the “regenerated body”, associated with cases of traumatic sexual violence, which cause psychological damage to victims, as is the case of the characters In the short story “Mulher cobra” (2018), by Sheila Smanioto, and In the novels Eu me possuo (2016), by Stela Florence, and Vista chinesa (2021), by Tatiana Salem Levy. Methodologically, we expand Elódia Xavier’s typology by identifying the aesthetic marks of the “harassed body”, “raped body”, “abandoned body”, “rejected body” and “regenerated body”. We also explore the concept of “body-territory”, according to Verónica Gago (2020), and we propose to recognize the work that reports the rape as a “testimony letter”, In accordance with Eurídice Figueiredo (2021), or as a body-writing. As a result, we identified characters In Smanioto’s, Florence’s and Levy’s fiction that overcome the trauma of rape, emerging as regenerated/liberated bodies.