This study consists of a comparative analysis of three novels by three prominent African women writers which cast light on the ways in which women are oppressed by traditional and cultural norms in three different African countries. These three primary texts also explore the ways in which African women's lives are affected by other issues, such as colonialism and economic factors, and this study discusses this. An analysis of these novels reveals that the inter-connectedness of racial, class and gender issues exacerbates the oppression of many African women, thereby lessening the opportunities for them to attain self-realization. This study goes on to investigate whether there are possibilities of empowerment for the women in the primary texts, and examining the reasons why some women fail to transcend their situations of oppression. The primary novels will be discussed in different chapters, which explore the problems with which various women are beset, and discuss the extent to which the various women in the novels manage to attain empowerment. In conclusion, this study compares and contrasts the ways in which the women in the primary texts are oppressed and highlights the reasons why some women are able to attain empowerment, whilst others are unable to do so. It also shows that many women are beset with comparable forms of oppression, but they may choose to react to these situations differently. Over and above these issues, the study seeks to draw attention to the fact that women need to come together and contribute to the ways in which they can attain various forms of empowerment.

This study consists of a comparative analysis of three novels by three prominent African women writers which cast light on the ways in which women are oppressed by traditional and cultural norms in three different African countries. These three primary texts also explore the ways in which African women‟s lives are affected by other issues, such as colonialism and economic factors, and this study discusses this. An analysis of these novels reveals that the interconnectedness of racial, class and gender issues exacerbates the oppression of many African women, thereby lessening the opportunities for them to attain self-realization. This study goes on to investigate whether there are possibilities of empowerment for the women in the primary texts, and examining the reasons why some women fail to transcend their situations of oppression. The primary novels will be discussed in different chapters, which explore the problems with which various women are beset, and discuss the extent to which the various women in the novels manage to attain empowerment. In conclusion, this study compares and contrasts the ways in which the women in the primary texts are oppressed and highlights the reasons why some women are able to attain empowerment, whilst others are unable to do so. It also shows that many women are beset with comparable forms of oppression, but they may choose to react to these situations differently. Over and above these issues, the study seeks to draw attention to the fact that women need to come together and contribute to the ways in which they can attain various forms ofempowerment.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-05-18T19:17:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertofoisbraga.pdf: 13365219 bytes, checksum: 35bb56003a800d441fe5509e5b1d4837 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-19T14:36:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertofoisbraga.pdf: 13365219 bytes, checksum: 35bb56003a800d441fe5509e5b1d4837 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-19T14:36:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 humbertofoisbraga.pdf: 13365219 bytes, checksum: 35bb56003a800d441fe5509e5b1d4837 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-30 / A partir de um estudo transdisciplinar, a presente tese analisa como o projeto multimídia Amores Expressos (RT Features, Academia de Filmes e Companhia das Letras) constrói uma coleção literária fundada nas narrativas de viagem, cuja problemática da mobilidade contemporânea é o leitmotiv que aglutina os dez romances vindos a público. Mais especificamente, busca analisar o discurso das viagens internacionais que estrutura os planos do enunciado e da enunciação dessas obras colecionáveis, estipulando um arco políticopoético da motilidade para os personagens, esses estrangeiros cujos deslocamentos apontam para um anti-bildungsroman. A partir dos estudos estruturalistas e genealógicos a respeito das coleções literárias - que nos possibilita compreender a “estética da interrupção” como um fator de identificação dos volumes –, e da constituição de três topoï considerados argumentos de uma literatura de viagem – i. o tempo-espaço da mobilidade; ii. motivações e consequências da viagem; iii. o corpo lá(r) do estrangeiro e suas relações de hostipitalidade com os demais personagens arquetípicos da viagem – , a pesquisa elabora uma literatura comparada entre as obras Amores Expressos. Como resultado das análises, percebemos que os autores e suas obras constituem um campo de força na coleção: Cordilheira, O filho da mãe, Do fundo do poço se vê a Lua, O único final feliz para uma história de amor é um acidente, O livro de Praga e Estive em Lisboa e lembrei de você, esse último romance ainda que bem mediano nas avaliações, compõem uma “alta-coleção”, enquanto Barreira, Digam ao Satã que o recado foi entendido, Ithaca Road e Nunca vai embora formam o subcampo da “baixacoleção” Amores Expressos. Através da análise do arco da mobilidade de dezessete personagens, vemos que essa alta-coleção é a das viagens femininas e homossexuais, apresentando alta motilidade, com indisposições na partida e finais trágicos. Por seu turno, a baixa-coleção é das viagens masculinas e heterossexuais, com mobilidades linearmente simples, cujos sujeitos também partem desmotivados, tendo como desfecho principal a retenção dos estrangeiros em seus locais de chegada. E, até o momento, sendo uma coletânea composta somente por homens escritores, isso gerou algumas características bastante específicas para as narrativas de viagem, sendo elas sintetizadas no mito cristão de Adão e Eva e de suas expulsões do Paraíso: a mulher inconsequente que prejudica os homens; o banimento e a mobilidade que veio a reboque como sendo um castigo; a consumação do fruto proibido como ato de independência que desagrada a divindade. Ser estrangeiro é uma condenação, pois os sujeitos fora dos padrões familiares tradicionais são expulsos de casa, punidos com o deslocamento e com as mazelas derivadas (i.e. morte, desaparecimento, retenções, desilusões, fugas à deriva). Antes de tudo, os viajantes são pecadores incapazes de voltar para casa; e a coleção utiliza os argumentos das viagens para poder descontruí-las, sugerindo que a mobilidade é para aqueles que estão com problemas e condenados: famílias mononucleares e patriarcais, aparentemente, são bem-aventurados em suas sedentariedades, não precisando de viajar para encontrar o pote da felicidade no final do arco-íris da jornada. Finalmente, pudemos sugerir que a referida coletânea existe muito mais no circuito midiático que a promove do que na materialidade dos livros e no hábito de leitura dos consumidores, que não parecem interessados em ler todos os volumes e, consequentemente, não se constituem como colecionadores. / Through a transdisciplinary study, this thesis aims to analyze, , how the multimedia Project Amores Expressos – Express Love, in English – (RT Features, Academia de Filmes e Companhia das Letras) builds a literary collection founded on travel narratives, whose leitmotiv of contemporary mobility agglutinates the ten published novels. More specifically, it seeks to analyze the discourse of international travels which structures the enunciation and the enunciating plans of these collectible works, stipulating a political-poetical arch of motility for the characters, these strangers whose displacements point towards an anti-bildungsroman. From structuralist and genealogical studies about literary collections that enable the understanding of the “aesthetics of interruption” as an identifying factor of the volumes - , and of the constitution of the three topoï considered to be arguments of travel literature – i. the space-time of mobility; ii. Motivations and consequences of traveling; iii. The corpo lá(r) and their relations with hospitality with the other archetypical characters of traveling -, we carried out a comparative literature study of the novels which comprise the Amores Expressos collection. As a result of the analysis, we came to the conclusion that the authors and their works constitute a bourdieusian force field in the collection. We have subdivided Amores Expressos into two categories, based on the reviews they have received. Cordilheira, O filho da mãe, Do fundo do poço se vê a Lua, O único final feliz para uma história de amor é um acidente, O livro de Praga and Estive em Lisboa e lembrei de você, constitute what we call a “high-collection”, or, in other words, those that were critically (or perhaps relatively) acclaimed; while Barreira, Digam ao Satã que o recado foi entendido, Ithaca Road and Nunca vai embora comprise a subfield of the, thus, “lower-collection” of Amores Expressos. Through the analysis of the arch of mobility of seventeen characters, we can see that the “high-collection” is one of female and homosexual travels, presenting high motility, being unwilling to depart and facing tragic endings. Meanwhile, the lower-collection is composed of heterosexual male travels, with linearly similar mobilities, whose subjects also set out feeling demotivated, having as closure their moorings in their arrival places. And, until this moment, being a collection comprised only of male writers, this created some very specific characteristics for the travel narratives, being synthesized in the Christian myth of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Paradise: the reckless woman who harms men; the banishment and the mobility which ensued, as punishment; the eating of the forbidden fruit as an act of independence which upsets the divine. Being a stranger is a condemnation, since the subjects that do not fit the traditional family values are expelled from home, punished with displacement and the ills that followed (i.e. death, vanishing, arrests, delusions, escapes). Before all, the travellers are sinners who are incapable of going back home; and the collection uses the arguments of travels to deconstruct them, suggesting that the mobility is for those who are in trouble and have been convicted of crimes. Mononuclear and patriarchal families, apparently, have good fortune in their sedentariness, bypassing the need to travel in order to find the pot of gold (or even happiness) at the end of the rainbow of the journey. Finally, we suggest that the studied collection exists much more in the media circle used to promote it, than in materiality and in the reading habit of its consumers, who do not seem eager to read all the volumes and, consequently, are not collectors.

M.A. (French) / This thesis investigates the collective literary Project entitled Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire, written by nine Francophone, African intellectuals in response to the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. Six of them are fictional novels or travel diaries by non- Rwandans, based on the stories and adaptations of the stories of survivors. There is one poetry anthology and two texts by Rwandans: a survivor’s testimony and an essay by a Tutsi who was in exile during the genocide. A comparison of the literary strategies, used by the authors to respond both individually and collectively to the difficulty of writing the ‘inexpressible’, forms the basis of this analysis. It explores trauma theory and its application to literature and fiction, focusing on how signs of traumatic memory are made visible in the texts. Based on Ricoeur’s notion of triple mimesis, it considers the interaction between victim, writer/text and reader/listener which re-establishes the communication interrupted by the trauma of genocide. The thesis considers the initiation, aims and challenges of the Project. It provides an overview of the origins and consequences of the genocide as observed by the writers. A literary analysis of each of the nine texts separately allows the reader to appreciate the variety of approaches: collective/individual; witness-survivor/indirect witness; fact/fiction, and the blending of these opposites. A synthesis of the recurring motifs, lieux de mémoire and emblematic characters foregrounds tensions that emerge in the postgenocide society between memory and forgetting, identity and alterity, survivors and exiles, forgiveness and justice, survival and the death experience. These elements create an intertextual, fictional world that is nevertheless anchored in the reality of genocide, a polyphonic narrative which contributes to a deeper understanding of the collective horror of the genocide.

La tesis que presentamos se centra en la importancia que la ilustración como categoría semiótico-discursiva establece en las colecciones literarias de novela corta, que triunfan en España en los años iniciales del siglo XX. En los cinco primeros capítulos, se plantean aspectos significativos del mundo de la imagen ilustrada: una aproximación al decurso histórico de la ilustración, a su consideración como medio de comunicación de masas, y a su relación con las disciplinas artísticas clásicas como pintura y la literatura. También se realiza un análisis generalizado del ámbito y el mercado en que tiene lugar el auge de las colecciones de novela corta en sus diferentes variantes. El capítulo VI se dedica a un estudio semiótico centrado en las consideradas siete grandes colecciones de novela corta: El Cuento Semanal, Los Contemporáneos, La Novela Corta, El Libro Popular, La Novela Semanal, La Novela de Hoy y La Novela Mundial. / The thesis that we defend is focused on the importance of the illustration, considered as a semiotic-discursive category, within the literary collections of short novel, those who had triumphed in Spain at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the first five chapters, we propose some significant aspects regarding the world of the illustrated image: an approach to the historic course of illustration, to its consideration as one form of mass media, and to its connection with the classic artistic disciplines such as painting and literature. Moreover, we carry out a general analysis of the cultural realm and market in which the different varieties of short novel collections reach their peak. Chapter VI is devoted to a semiotic study that is focused on the seven greatest short novel collections: The Weekly Tale, The Contemporaries, The Short Novel, The Popular Story Book, The Weekly Novel, Today's Novel and The Worldly Novel.