Black voices and women-resistance in "O crime do Cais do Valongo", by Eliana Alves Cruz

Abstract

Since the beginning of times, in patriarchal cultures, the masculine cosmoworld has forged identities, roles and social places that are reserved for women, marked by marginalization and subalternity (Spivak 2010), which limited them based on restrictive gender norms and pejorative stereotypes. This fact highly contributes to the maintenance of the silencing situation to which women were, and still are, subjected. However, many changes are taking place in the sociocultural scenario, particularly in Brazil, and many women are already occupying a voice in counter-narratives that challenge their limiting historical frameworks. Thus, thinking about social transformation involving transgressing pre-established norms of behavior, domination and power imposed by society on genders. We therefore propose the study of the novel O crime do cais do Valongo (2018), by Eliana Alves Cruz, aiming to analyze the resistance of black women – Muana, Roza and Tereza – presented in the work, which profoundly marks the historical moment in which the plot develops and shows an inside view of official history from a new perspective: the one of enslaved women. To do so, we seek anchoring in the theoretical assumptions of Spivak (2010); Zolin (2009); Hall (2006); Bamasile (2012); Mbembe (2018) among others if necessary.