This study attempts to shed light on the psychological mindsets of two minor femalecharacters in two fictional stories, Lady Capulet, the mother in Romeo and Juliet (1597), and Mrs Bennet, the mother in Pride and Prejudice (1813). The stories are set centuries apart by two different English authors. Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare and was published in 1597, whilst Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen and was published in 1813. This essay will examine why the authors show the mothers with characteristic attitudes and habitual behaviours that inherently portray them as women affected by patriarchy. Lady Capulet is revealed as a mother who supports her husband in the arrangement of her daughter’s marriage, but as a mother who punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man arranged by the father. Mrs Bennet is portrayed as a mother driven by materialistic gains, whose ultimate obsession is to find men to marry her daughters, a mother who also punishes her daughter for refusing to marry a man picked out by her. The authors are well renowned, and both tales are amongst the greatest romantic love stories of all times. Nevertheless, these stories do not support the feminist cause for equality of the sexes but instead create a reality of a society that was essentially patriarchal. Psychoanalytical feminist literary criticism reveals that the authors were deeply influenced by a patriarchal culture, which they have reflected and created in the mother characterisations of their stories.

Submitted by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-02-13T15:59:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Natália Salomé de Souza.pdf: 3085936 bytes, checksum: 7977f55038ff9f4443c4b9cd5aa5c33e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-02-13T15:59:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Natália Salomé de Souza.pdf: 3085936 bytes, checksum: 7977f55038ff9f4443c4b9cd5aa5c33e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-13T15:59:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Natália Salomé de Souza.pdf: 3085936 bytes, checksum: 7977f55038ff9f4443c4b9cd5aa5c33e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-07 / CAPES / Na busca de uma escrita que falasse do corpo feminino pela própria mulher, encontrei a lírica de Maria Teresa Horta. Em seus poemas, a eu-lírica dá voz a um corpo, de forma a desamarrá-lo de um jugo patriarcal. Há, portanto, uma voz e uma escrita feminina que partem de uma imanência, analisadas, a princípio, a partir de um movimento interior que nos responderá perguntas essenciais, tais como: o que torna esta escrita verdadeiramente feminina? Em quais aspectos ela diverge de uma escrita masculina? Esta escrita é uma manifestação biológica ou seu conceito não se funda nesta perspectiva? Na concepção de Hélène Cixous e Luce Irigaray, teóricas do feminismo da diferença, há um ser mulher que foi constantemente apagado pela lei do pai e do logos, portanto a escrita e a fala feminina precisariam subverter o falogocentrismo e deixarem-se fluir através do próprio corpo feminino. Seria a retomada da linguagem semiótica de Kristeva, essencialmente feminina e circular, que não se prende na denominação e estaticidade do nome. Numa linguagem poética e erótica, encontramos esta fala do corpo que em si ultrapassa uma ordem imposta à sociedade, e isto nos leva ao segundo movimento – um movimento exterior. As implicações de uma retomada do corpo feminino pelas mulheres fora da soberania patriarcal levariam a uma mudança completa da sociedade, em que homens e mulheres não ocupariam espaços verticais; antes disso, suas posições sociais dar-se-iam num eixo horizontal em que não haveria hierarquia, logo as mulheres não seriam subalternas aos homens e vice-versa. Haveria respeito mútuo dentro da diferença e politicamente a diferença de gênero não seria motivo de discriminação e subalternidade. A poesia representa, portanto, a possibilidade de subversão da ordem patriarcal, da ordem do falo, desde que, quando produzida por mulheres, seja uma escrita do corpo feminino, uma escrita feminina que se diz a partir da voz de uma eu-lírica. Da mesma forma que do devir mulher surge uma lírica feminina, emerge também a ginocrítica – teoria literária que marca uma tradição feminina nos estudos da literatura que rejeita a crítica tradicional. / In the search for writings by women that talked about the female body I found Maria Teresa Horta’s lyric. In her poems, the eu-lírica gives voice to a body as a way to untie it from the patriarchal domain. Thus, there is a woman’s voice and a woman’s writing that derive from an immanence. They are analyzed, at first, from an internal movement that will answer some essential questions, such as: what makes this writing truly feminine? In what aspects is it different from a masculine one? Is it a biological manifestation or is this concept not founded in such perspective? According to the ideas of Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, theoreticians of the difference feminism, there is a ‘woman being’ that has constantly been erased by the “father”’s and the logos’s laws, therefore women’s writing and speech need to subvert phallogocentrism and let themselves flow through female body. It would be the return of the semiotic language of Kristeva, essentially feminine and circular, which is not tied to the denomination and immobility of the name. In a poetic and erotic language, we find this speech of the body that surpasses an imposed social order, thus leading us to a second movement – an external one. The implications of a recovery of the female body by women outside the patriarchal sovereign would lead to a complete change in society, in which men and women would not occupy vertical spaces; on the contrary, their social positions would be established in a horizontal axis with no hierarchy, so women would not be subordinated to men and vice-versa. There would be mutual respect inside the difference. Politically, gender difference would not be a reason for discrimination and subordination. Hence, poetry represents the possibility of subversion of the patriarchal order from the phallus, as long as, when produced by women, it is the writing of a female body, a woman’s writing that voices the eu-lírica. From the becoming of a woman, women’s lyrics is born. Similarly, there comes gynocritics– a literary theory that marks a women’s tradition in the literary studies that rejects traditional criticism.