Motherhood and senescence in the novel Quarenta Dias, by Maria Valéria Rezende

Abstract

The aging female body is a double target of control ways since both female bodies and old bodies are inside a network of powers that impose limitations, prohibitions, and/or obligations to them. Those bodies are constantly submitted to a power Bourdieu (2012) regards as symbolic violence, exercised by domination structures, which end up guiding social practices. Hence, referring to considerations about the public/private duality (BIROLI, 2014a, 2014b, 2015), this paper intends to analyze the female condition in senescence, as well as the familiar relationships and the theme of motherhood as they are represented in the novel Quarenta Dias, by Maria Valéria Rezende (2014). The aim is to demonstrate how the performance of symbolic violence on the aging female body is naturalized and systematically reproduced. Through this study, I have looked for presenting how the novel gives rise to the possibility of rethinking female senescence beyond existing stereotypes and prejudices. It disrupts dominant socio-cultural and discursive structures, giving echo to a kind of countercultural voice, which is able to produce new values and new ways of thinking about the feminine and senescence.