An analysis about the categories of dehumanization of the subject among the black characters in the work of Úrsula, by Maria Firmina dos Reis

Abstract

This work has for object a study on the categories of dehumanization of the oppressed subject, identified through the settler’s speech in relation to the black characters, in the work Ursula, by Maria Firmina dos Reis, a writer from Maranhão. In the year 1859, in the slave regime, Maria Firmina became the first African-Brazilian writer to publish a novel in Brazil, this book reveals a double daring: the first, to have been written by a woman, and, second, to have abolitionists marks in the narrative. An important contribution to the analyses is the episode of memoirs of a character called Mother Susana, who, in addition to the period in which blacks were brought to the Brazilian lands, will also contest the European concepts of freedom and liberty. On account of these historical and anthropological details, will be used in a theoretical methodological framework, post-colonial studies of Frantz Fanon and the concepts of identity of Stuart Hall.