Formas de narrar o outro

Abstract

This monograph analyzes female representations in three contemporary Brazilian dystopian novels: 40 Dias by Maria Valéria Rezende; A Nova Ordem by Bernardo Kuczynski; and Corpos Secos, a collective work by Luisa Geisler, Marcelo Ferroni, Natalia Borges Polesso e Samir Machado de Machado. The central aim of the research is to investigate how female bodies are narrated in contexts of social, political, and symbolic collapse, seeking to identify how these representations either affirm or subvert the historical logic of silencing imposed on women. The analysis is based on narrative, structural, and symbolic elements to understand how female presence is constructed within these dystopian spaces and what this construction reveals about power relations, subversion, and vulnerability. The study begins by recognizing a gap in Brazilian literary criticism concerning dystopias that explore female experiences or are led by women, particularly in crisis contexts. This is a qualitative research, using dialectical and comparative methods. The dialectical method allows reflection on the tensions between oppression and subversion in the narratives, while the comparative method enables the identification of convergences and divergences among the selected works. The approach is bibliographic, grounded in theoretical studies on representation, alterity, power, and gender. The findings indicate that, although immersed in scenarios of devastation, the female characters do not remain in passive roles: their bodies and actions embody multiple forms of subversion, identity reinvention, and contestation of domination structures. Thus, the dystopias analyzed not only expose violence but also articulate possibilities of fissure and symbolic rupture, producing social critique from a female perspective.