A fluidez do bem e do mal: a família tradicional carioca em A vida invisível de Eurídice Gusmão

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the literary text The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, written by Martha Batalha in 2016, under some of the discursive formations of the bourgeois class that define which behaviours would be appropriate and good for the performance of women in society. Behaviors that deviate from the norm would be seen as reprehensible, suspicious, and threatening to the social order and can be analyzed through the characters Guida, Maria Rita and Filomena as opposed to the character of Eurídice, who often tries to fit in the pattern. The novel offers a historical overview of the 1940s in Rio de Janeiro; an essential period of political and labor transition in Brazilian history. For its analysis, other theoretical books and articles were used as the works of Foucault, about punishment, and José Luís Fiorin, about discourses and ideologies, to understand how the human being processes the influence of hegemonic discourses and how they are reflected in the lives of people who do not belong to the ruling class, reflecting their opposites. As a result, it is possible to see the fine lines between good and evil in the values ​​and behaviors rejected from the relationship between the desire of the ruling class to perpetuate the current economic model, and the various strategies used for female domination, which culminates in physical and psychological violence.