A interface literatura e geometria: problematizando as matizes sexuais em Állex Leilla

Abstract

This research aims to problematize the notion of being male and female, as well as to utilize geometric objects to discuss the affective and sexual relationships experienced by the characters of three literary books by Bahia-native author Állex Leilla: Henrique (2001), O sol que a chuva apagou (2009), and Primavera nos ossos (2010). The questions discussed go through the problematization of the definitions about what it means to be male and female; as well as heterosexuality and homosexuality while impositions created in order to frame the subjects. For this study, we took the concept of “space in-between”, discussed by Santiago ([1978] 2000), presenting a new meaning and another spelling for it, “inbetween”, and proposing a new way of (re)thinking about the characters/subjects presented in the analyzed works, and the relationships they establish among each other. Conceptually still, we put under debate the relationships commonly referred to as “love triangles,” and used mathematic theories to find another geometric object that could be seen as a representative “image” of these affective and sexual involvements. This way, the research took concepts from Euclidian Geometry, in regard to geometric objects, as a metaphor to talk about affective-sexual relationships with the other and/or with the others. At the end of the research, we noticed that, in the analyzed works, the characters do not fit the socially and culturally popularized binary molds of what it means to be male and/or female, and, thus, they can be male and female in a space of entrelugar (inbetween). Through the analyzed characters‟ performances, the definitions for the aforementioned categories are unsatisfactory. Beyond that, we noticed that the relationships experienced can be metaphorically represented by an spiral image, in a tridimensional perspective, since this geometric object is a revolution whose starting point is a fixed point, but it is in constant making, presenting, thus, unlimited possibilities for the relationships among the subjects – regardless of who is the object of affective and/or sexual desire.