A personagem Branca Dias : uma herege leitora no Brasil colonial

Abstract

This work analyses the importance of readings in the construction of the heretic and subversive model of feminine identity represented by Bianca Dias in the play O Santo Inquérito, by Dias Gomes. In the play, the Holy Office judges the protagonist for a no conventional crime: the knowledge acquired by means of prohibited readings. As the books that Branca Dias read were part of the Index Auctorum et Librorum, made in 1559 by Pope Paul IV, in Coimbra, the punishment received by Simão Dias s daughter would be only confirmed through her confection. Being questioned, the protagonist shows a knowledge pertaining to literate cultures, as the Jewish. Besides, there are concrete proofs, for the inquisitors, that she Judaized. Because of this, she is condemned to die in the stake. Other aspect of great riches, and that makes contemporary this Dias Gomes s play, is the discussion about genus, the Church interference in costumes of ethnical groups during the colonization process in the tropics and the military intervention during the military coup that brought the civil Brazilian Dictatorship, presented with allegorical traces. Branca Dias is, therefore, the representation of human truths; she is the scapegoat that fulfills the function of revealing the lack of liberty on Holy Office Court reign and on dictatorial period.