A SUPERAÇÃO DAS IMAGENS DE CONTROLE NO CONTO “EVERYDAY USE” (1973) DE ALICE WALKER: UMA ANÁLISE DAS PERSONAGENS MAMA, MAGGIE E DEE

Abstract

Literature exerts a profound influence on the perception that one has of society and its individuals. In light of this, the present work studies the representations of the black woman in the short story “Everyday Use” (1973) by Alice Walker to analyze whether the characters Mama, Maggie, and Dee correspond to stereotypical descriptions of black femininity. For this purpose, through bibliographic research, is presented a brief historical context of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the main aspects of black nationalism, the classifications of narrative characters according to the literary studies by Candido (1968) and Forster (2005) and the concept of controlling images based on Patricia Hill Collins in the book Black Feminist Thought (2002). As a result, it confirms that the “Everyday Use” (1973) characters are realistic representations of black femininity and distance themselves from the definitions of controlling images. Therefore, they are complex characters created from the author's perception of herself and the world around her.