“Clarice Lispector for girls and boys”: the gender relations in the children’s book of the Antiprincesas Collection in analysis by the three-dimensional bias of discourse

Abstract

In this article, we focus on understanding the discursive strategies of gender approach in the book of the Antiprincesas Collection titled “Clarice Lispector for girls and boys”. From this literary work, we seek to map the relationship between the discursive strategies and the new proposal of a gender approach expressed in the book. The perspective of gender that supports the discussions proposed by this research starts from the poststructuralist conception tied to the history of the contemporary feminist movement that understands the gender from a relational perspective, and in this study is approached especially based on Louro (2008) and Butler (2003). The methodology that supports this discussion is the Critical Discourse Analysis structured by Norman Fairclough (2001), since this delineation allows linking the discourse with the relations of power and ideology. As a result, we highlight ruptures regarding the gender performances by Clarice Lispector in the children’s book, in which it is possible to observe the effort in establishing relations between the text and the context, through discursive strategies of approximation with reality. The book offers different possibilities of representation when presenting an anti-writer, with a restless life, full of situations of inconformity and transformation, which do not follow the pattern of a hegemonic matrix.

Keywords: Gender. Children’s book. Anti princess. Discourse.