Talking to a brick wall: spaces of solitude and cloister in Júlia Lopes de Almeida and Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the representation of female loneliness in works by Júlia Lopes de Almeida and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. There is evidence that Almeida read the short story “The yellow wallpaper” (1892), by her contemporary Gilman, and was inspired by it in at least two circumstances, as this article will show. In Almeida’s novel Cruel amor (1911), enclosure (as in Gilman's short story) is at the root of female madness; it is its cause and consequence. In the short story “No muro” (1898), there is not exactly closure, but isolation, which allows the character to delve into her memories, through which she accesses facts and concerns that she would prefer to have left in the shadows. Bringing to center stage the unprecedented relationship between these Brazilian and North American writers is a way of suggesting that external influences served as a stimulus for expanding the expressive resources of Brazilian feminist writing.