A (des)construção do feminino na obra lobatiana.

Abstract

Until the beginning of the twentieth century few Brazilian authors had given differentiated space to women on children’s literature, they were all attached to those European children’s classic’s idea in which the female characters were descripted as submissive and extremely careful concerning the physical description, always exalting the beauty. The writer named Monteiro Lobato insert on Brazilian children’s literature four female characters who reflect Brazil’s style, both on physical and behavioral traces, and they help on the process of the national culture naturalization. The family’s matriarch, Mrs. Benta, her granddaughter Lucia, the talented cook Aunt Anastacia and the doll Emilia became classic figures in our literature and they marked different generations. Lobato put down some barriers at the moment He inserted female main characters, putting them in the same level of male characters. Through their representation and speech it is easy to notice the rupture with the old literature models. The present paper, through a comparative and historical approach, aims to analyze on how the female identities are represented in the lobatian’s work, characterizing them in history as atypical to the sociocultural aspects from the publication’s age. It is also our objective to highlight the importance of this work on the current Brazilian children’s literature construction.