A literatura infantil diante da morte: imagens contemporâneas

Abstract

Death has never been an easy subject, being commonly seen as an incomprehensible mystery. Therefore, its approach constitutes one of the most delicate theme to talk about, specially when children are involved. The bibliographic research aims to discuss the death in children’s literature in a contemporary context, using literary works selected on PNLD 2018 Literário - early years: O menino que amava passupreto (2017), A moça artista do topo do morro (2017), Votupira, o vento doido da esquina (2018) and O herói imóvel (2018). The specific goals are: to bring the death story and its presence in literature; to approach its introduction in children’s literature nowadays and to analyze death in the corpus research, approaching verbal and visual elements in the text, highlighting the way it is approached and presented. As theoretical contribution it will be used papers from authors who had already worked with the topic such as: Ariès (1986; 2012; 2014), Paiva (2011), Kovács (2002), among others. As results it was possible to notice how relevant it is to question the idea of dying in texts made for children. Although it is labeled as a symbolical representation, the literature helps to comprehend one of the most complex experiences a person face during a lifetime. Hence, it was possible to notice that literature works as discourse tool through imagination and fantasy under conflicting situations, using an adequate language which respects the child’s cognitive capacity.