Entre a visibilidade e a estereotipação de personagens negras em "Úrsula" de Maria Firmina dos Reis: uma análise dialógica

Abstract

The present research seeks to discuss the conflict between the visualization of Black characters and their stereotyped representation in the novel Úrsula (1956), the object of our research, and the first Brazilian novel written by a Black woman, Maria Firmina dos Reis. In this sense, its general objective is to understand the representation of black characters in Úrsula. Specifically, we intend to identify and discuss the conflict found in the novel between the visualization and stereotyping of Túlio, Susana, and Antero, the Black characters of the novel. Our theoretical framework is based on Bakhtin’s theory of the novel (2015) as well as writings of authors from the Bakhtin Circle, and the studies of Brookshaw (1983), who brings a classification of stereotypes of Black characters found in Brazilian literature. Moreover, our discussion on the historical and cultural context of slavery is based on Gomes’s studies (2020). Based on our analysis of the novel, we conclude that the practice of stereotyping used by 19th-century writers isreverberated by Maria Firmina dos Reis when creating her Black characters, because although she seeks to make her Black characters visible, escaping from the “white symbolism” of the time, she failed to build them in a non-stereotypical way.