Manifestations of trauma

existing and resisting violence against women in Mulheres empilhadas, by Patrícia Melo

Abstract

In Latin America, literary works produced by authoresses seek to contest discourses sacralized by the colonial/modern gender system. In Mulheres empilhadas (2019), writer Patrícia Melo highlights multiple forms of violence against women to perceive Brazilian social constructs through lenses that focus on a different perspective from the one built for centuries regarding female bodies. In this paper, I intend to analyze narrative strategies used by the authoress so that themes such as pain and manifestations derived from traumatic processes are addressed. Based on studies by Rita Segato (2003), who contextualizes the structural elements of Latin American violence; María Lugones (2008), who emphasizes the decolonial perspective and coloniality of gender; Zilá Bernd (2013), on memory and narratives of resistance; and Lúcia Zolin (2019), who stresses Feminist Literary Criticism as a methodology for analyzing literary texts – in addition to other Latin American feminists who depart from the epistemologies of the South –, I conclude that Mulheres empilhadas challenges patriarchal conceptions by representing the collective struggle of women as a possibility of resistance.