Eroticism and Desire in the Female Characters of Lygia Fagundes Telles

Abstract

This paper proposes a study of the short stories “As Cerejas” from the book Um Coração Ardente (2012) and “Senhor Diretor” from the work Seminário dos Ratos (1977), both written by Lygia Fagundes Telles. The core of this investigation is the analysis of female representations in these narratives, focusing on how eroticism and desire are expressed by the protagonists. This approach aims to examine a possible alignment between these representations and the author's feminist perspectives regarding the expression of the erotic by female subjects. For this purpose, the study draws on the works of Bataille (1987), Paz (1994), and Branco (2004), who reflect on sexuality and eroticism; the perspectives of Grosz (2000), Perrot (2003), and hooks (2018), who discuss feminism and the misogynistic ideologies that uphold patriarchy; and the contributions of Lucas (1990), Galvão (2018), and Coelho (1991) on Lygia's prose style and the aims of women's literature in the 20th century. Through an analysis grounded in these authors' insights, it was possible to identify, in the selected stories, traces of a perspective that aligns with feminist proposals regarding female erotic and sexual freedom.