A "Emancipação" feminina em Senhora de Alencar.

Abstract

The novel Senhora (1997) by Jose de Alencar presents female characters impresioned in the patriarcal code of the XIX century, but marked by a behavior that would be called "feminista" today, mainly because some of them seem to try to break with the ruling phallocentric discourse and order. The heroine, Amelia, shows this behavior and a desire for emancipation. She, to a certain degree, rebels against the stereotypes linked to women and, consequentely, to herself, de to social conventions and the marriage market. She searches for asserting herself as gender when takes tasks related to the male universe within her own private space, when she becomes the leader of the house, provider, manager of her own discourse and a tutor for her husband, Seixas. However, she still is a woman whose psychological, intellectual and emocional formation is limited by the demands imposed on women by the society of her time, expressed in the narrative by the phallocentric ideology of the author through the voice of his narrator and the other female voices. The novel seals the construction of the female space and identity, mainly those of the heroine, though the male point o view and authorship. Thus, this monography has as its objective to analyse the female "emancipation", highlightening the issue of authorship from a feminist perspective.