A importância da representatividade das mulheres na literatura e na filosofia: Um estudo sobre apagamento e autodefinição

Abstract

This work aims to dedicate itself to the importance of women's representativeness in literature, and at the same time the relevance of reflecting on the presence of women in Philosophy. In this way, it is justified by demonstrating the erasure of women in these two areas and exploring alternatives to combat the sexist social historical construct that prevents the full development of women. It also intends to attest that the narratives of the protagonists Amani (HAMILTON, 2016), Celaena (MAAS, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c), Katniss (COLLINS, 2012), Lia (PEARSON, 2017) and Safira (REGGIANI, 2020) can influence and contribute to the personal development of women. For this, the work was divided into three chapters: the first brings a brief analysis of the presence of women in literature while writers and characters, highlighting that for a long time this space was dominated by men. It also presents descriptions of characteristics of the five chosen heroines and demonstrates the importance and contributions that these characters caused in the personal development of the author of this work. The second chapter discusses two models of heroic journeys, Joseph Campbell's Mythological Hero's Journey and Maureen Murdock's Heroine's Journey. It also deals with the historical-social constructs of women's condition based on Simone de Beauvoir's analysis and draws a parallel between the heroine's journey and women's self-definition. The third chapter discusses the erasure and silencing of women throughout the history of Western Philosophy. In short, with this work I conclude that Campbell's hero's journey was created with the aim of being universal, but fails to contemplate the inner journey of women. At the same time, the heroine's journey solves this problem, as it shows the process of identifying women as subjects by overcoming the historical-social constructs imposed on them. With that, I noticed a linearity between Murdock's and Beauvoir's work, as both, in their own way, demonstrate the women's emancipation movement. Therefore, I found that the characters used here can be considered as practical examples, therefore, representative of the women's self-definition process, because they express the search for understanding of themselves and their inner nature experienced by women. In addition, I concluded that the erasure of women in literature and philosophy persists to the present day and that its causes are machismo and patriarchy. Furthermore, the methodology used in this work consisted of conducting bibliographical research, which took place through studies of philosophical and literary works. Questions were also raised about the reason for the erasure of women, as well as about the contribution of the characters to the readers. The bibliographical study and the answers to these questions resulted in the text, tables and figures presented here.