A Body in Ruins or the Stigma of Prostitution in O voo da guará vermelha, by Maria Valéria Rezende

Abstract

This article analyses the ruin of a female body stigmatized by the marks of prostitution, as represented through the character Irene in the novel O voo da guará vermelha (2005), by Maria Valéria Rezende. The study investigates how the social impositions and the symbolic forms of violence exerted upon this marginalized body are internalized by the character, leading to the suppression of her subjectivity and, most notably, of her affective dimension. To this end, the research adopts a critical and interpretative analysis of the literary narrative, grounded in theoretical contributions from gender studies, body studies, and stigma theories, drawing on authors such as Erving Goffman (1988), Elódia Xavier (2007), Simone Beauvoir (2009), Judith Butler (2017;2019) and Pierre Bourdieu (2017). The analysis demonstrates that sexual exploitation and normative discourses surrounding the female body function as mechanisms of control that produces symbolic and affective erasures in the constitution of the character. It is therefore concluded that Maria Valéria Rezende’s work call these discourses into question by exposing the effects of structure violence on the female body, thereby contributing to critical studies on the representation of women in contemporary literature written by women.