A resistência das leoas em a confissão da leoa, de Mia Couto

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to reflect on women in Mia Couto's novel The Confession of the Lioness. This work deals with a bibliographic research whose objective is to observe the representation of women, their characteristics and their actions, seeking a reflection about the feminine, the place of speech, the power relations experienced within a village in Mozambique. We advance that the woman in Mozambique is silenced by several mechanismsfrom a patriarchal vision, inherited by the colonization, to traditional practices that centralize the power of speech and decision of the social life to the man. We seek to reflect on the vulnerability of women from an early age and the types of physical and symbolic violence suffered by the character, a feature that is already announced by the choice of women's names. Given these issues related to the silencing process, it was noted that the understanding of gender needs to be rethought discussed so that the subalternities related to the female are problematized. We will look at three female characters in the novel The Confession of Leone, Mariamar, Silence and Tandi, because they are marked by sexual / cultural arbitrariness.