A visibilidade das personagens gays/ bichas/ travestis na obra de Nelson Rodrigues

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the expressions of homoerotic desire and performances of femininity in male characters present in the fictional and dramatic work of Nelson Rodrigues. The configurations of such characters must be read at the intersection between the figure of the anti-hero and the tragic condition in scenes that are, for the bourgeois and Christian morality guiding the customs of the time, considered obscene. The research was structured in three chapters, each with emphasis on the themes and subthemes related to issues such as sexuality, gender and literature, enabling an understanding of aesthetic and social aspects minimized by the criticism specialized in the work of Rodrigues. Among the vast production of the writer and playwright on screen, the corpus selected for the analysis comprises four short stories taken from two anthologies of A vida como ela é (1992, 2012) and O beijo no asfalto (2019). The controversial visibility of these characters and themes in the totality of the work already points, first of all, to theoretical and critical links to be discussed: on the one hand, the social reality in whose context these texts emerge, marking, above all, the ideas of naturalness of the gender defined by biological sex and the pattern of compulsory heterosexuality, while, on the other hand, I emphasize the role of literary criticism, always an extension of literature itself, in entering the works along the paths not yet traveled, emphasizing characters and issues present in the texts previously excluded or lowered because they were not in accordance with moral and aesthetic standards valued at the time. As a theoretical-methodological strategy, initially, I propose a critical review of the criticism specialized in the work and life of Nelson Rodrigues, highlighting, among the best known scholars, the names of Sábato Magaldi (1992), Ruy Castro (1992), Ângela Leite Lopes (2007) and Adriana Facina (2004). Regarding the themes of gender and sexuality, I propose to revisit a history of the concepts of masculinity and homosexuality from theorists such as, for example, Judith Butler (2018, 2019), James N. Green (2019), João Silveiro Trevisan (2018). Finally, the concept of anti-hero, as proposed by Victor Brombert (2001), will allow (re)thinking the place of these characters seen as the most obscene up to the controversial standards of the Rodrigian universe. In this sense, the idea of visibility is thought of as a movement of literature itself to assume and welcome themes considered socially and culturally difficult, and it is also the role of criticism and literary theory to illuminate minority characters, making them perceptible to the reading public as we value it in our discussions and readings.