Valle lacrimarum

violence and patriarchy in Marido, by Lídia Jorge

Abstract

“Marido”, short story by Portuguese writer Lídia Jorge, portraits a common situation of violence associated to the marriage of protagonist Lúcia. In this paper, we analyze the representation of the patriarchal violence, in articulation with formal aspects of the story. For this approach, we used the authors Heleith Saffioti, Gerda Lerner, Michelle Perrot, Bryan Turner, among others. From reading the short story, we observe that the christian religious discourse evokes the idea of marriage as something unbreakable and sacred. The need of protection by Lúcia, immerse in a confined space with recurrent violence, is reinforced by the lexical reiteration. The word choice enlightens the situation of silence. The husband is constructed as the figure of patriarchy, omnipresent since the title of the short story. Our reading of “Marido” makes it possible to see some patriarchal operators of women’s silence and submission.