O corpo feminino como território explorado e domesticado : uma análise da personagem "Rapariga dos óculos escuros" em "Ensaio sobre a cegueira", de José Saramago

Abstract

This study examines the character known as the “girl with dark glasses” in José Saramago’s Blindness (1995), through the perspective of the female body as a territory of domestication, patriarchal exploitation, and objectification. Grounded in the theoretical reflections of Silvia Federici (2007), Heleieth Saffioti (1978, 1984, 2004), and Judith Butler (2003), the research highlights how the female body - historically subjected to processes of invisibility, stigmatization, and social appropriation - is represented in literature as a space of control and disciplining. The character, identified by the social stigma of prostitution, is narratively constructed as an anonymous and objectified body, exposing the layers of identity erasure and the symbolic and material violence imposed upon women. Thus, Saramago’s novel allegorically denounces the persistence of patriarchal structures that reduce women to the condition of objects.