Black woman between motherhood and violence: the amended representation in the Brazilian canonical literature

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Fabiana Carneiro
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/fb.v0i13.4837

The presence of black women in the set of works elevated to the condition of Brazilian canonical literature is reduced and, when existing, it is given through stereotypes and stigmatizations. Among these representations, the stereotypes of the “mulata” and the “mãe-preta”, figures in which maternity appears as interdiction, stand out. Taking into account the analysis of the contemporary novel Um defeito de cor, written by Ana Maria Gonçalves and published in 2006, this article proposes to reflect on how black motherhood was configured, especially through the myth of the “mãe-preta”, in Brazilian canonical literature. The purpose of this article is to present how the amended conception of the black woman as a mother is linked to the ideological construct of Brazilian nationalism – which hides the frontiers, differences and racial conflicts – and, in the same continuum, to the difficulty in the assumption of the African matrix in the transatlantic constitution of the country’s history.