A vida na corda bamba: violência e criminalidade em Olhos d’água, de Conceição Evaristo

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to analyze violence and crime in the short stories of the book "Olhos d'água" by Conceição Evaristo (2014). We started with the assumption that the focus is on violence and crime in urban peripheries, specifically located in the hills. The work consists of fifteen short stories, in which there is both symbolic and physical presence of violence and crimes suffered or committed by black protagonists, residents of these urban peripheries. In this study, we sought to identify the various forms of violence and crimes suffered, such as those committed by the protagonists of the stories: "Ana Davenga," "Duzu-Querença," "Maria," "Di Lixão," "A gente combinamos de não morrer." Thus, we investigated how these violence and crimes served to demonstrate the supremacy of black individuals or place them in a transgressive position in a fragmented society, and the means of survival of the Afro-Brazilian community in contemporary society. Conceição Evaristo has become one of the most significant intellectual writers of contemporary Afro-Brazilian literature, portraying through her writing black characters who have been stereotyped and marginalized for centuries. Furthermore, as a female writer, stereotyped by the canon as having a writing without political and social value judgments, the weight of this discrimination was harsh and exclusionary. Thus, the research follows the hypothetical-deductive bibliographic method for the study's verification. It relies on anthropological theories by Skidmore (1979), Azevedo (2004), Spivak (2010); Afro-Brazilian literature theories by Duarte (2011); and sociological and historical studies on Africans in Brazil by Freyre (2004). The discussion also encompasses laws that prescribe punishments for abuses portrayed in the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA), No. 8,069 reformulated by the Federal Constitution in (1988), and the Maria da Penha Law, 11,340 (2006), regarding punishments for domestic violence crimes, in addition to the analysis of the chosen work, "Olhos d'água," among others.