A genialidade da meritocracia : uma análise da obra A Amiga Genial, de Elena Ferrante

Abstract

The main objective of this dissertation is to present a sociological analysis of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, emphasizing the discussion of the meritocratic fallacy of “genius” in relation to the possibility of economic and social mobility that the narrative evokes, having as a guiding thread the economic and social conditions of the women in the work and their starting points – social origin, accumulation (in this case, lack) of various capitals, etc. The work can be divided into two moments that, however, intertwine and are understood by us as parts of a whole: the first moment is a more externalist analysis, where we focus on the italian literary field in its early days, and draw a kind of parallel between the italian literary tradition and what Ferrante brings from it in her writing today – as well as what she rejects. Still from an externalist point of view, we propose to observe the paths taken by the author, her aesthetic-formal, ethical, political choices, etc. that are expressed in their speeches and, likewise, in their writing. In the second moment, we turn our attention to the work itself, carrying out an internalist analysis, taking into account the context and the discussions developed there. We carry out the methodological path through discourse analysis from a bourdieusian perspective, which considers not only what is said (the discourse – in this case, the text inscribed there), but also who speaks (the agent – authorship) and the field from which they speak (literary field), that is, the work and its conditions of production.