UM ESTUDO SOBRE BRANQUITUDE A PARTIR DO CONTO O GERÂNIO DE FLANNERY O’CONNOR

Abstract

Studies on race in the literature have been increasingly important to understand some specific issues that permeate society, such as racial, gender and class prejudice. Through this aspect, this work intends to analyze, study and discuss the concept of whiteness from the modern short story O Gerânio (1946) by the American writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), to understand the racial look of the writer in the face of racial segregation that there was at the time. The specific objectives question whiteness through the characters, in addition to investigating and discussing aspects related to race such as whiteness, blackness, and age in terms of intersectional feminist criticism. The concepts of whiteness, blackness, and age will be analyzed in an intersectional way by the authors: bell hooks in work Olhares Negros: raça e representação (2019), Peggy McIntosh in White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (1989), Grada Kilomba with Memórias da Plantação – Episódios de Racismo Cotidiano (2019), Ijeoma Oluo in the work Então você quer conversar sobre raça (2018), Reni Eddo-Lodge who in her best seller Por que eu não converso mais com pessoas brancas sobre raça (2017), Cida Bento with O Pacto de Branquitude (2022) and Age Matters Re-Aligning Feminist Thinking (2013) by authors Kathleen F. Slevin e Toni M. Calasanti For this, the research is carried out in a bibliographic form, using the authors mentioned above recognized for the importance of racial and age research, in addition to analyzing the plot of the story through the perspective of American feminist criticism. The results obtained in the analysis reveal the damage caused by the lack of criticism about whiteness, considered as unique and universal, which is the recurrence and structuring of a racist society, in addition to identifying the concept of ageism that intersects and supports attitudes of racial discrimination through of the main character.