Mulheres-monstro e espetáculos circenses: o grotesco nas narrativas de Ângela Carter, Lya Luft e Susan Swan

Abstract

This work analyzes the novels Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter, Exílio by Lya Luft, and The Biggest Modern Woman of the World by Susan Swan, focusing on the grotesque found in each of these works. The spaces in which Carters, Lufts and Swans characters are found aredislocated from the center of power, relegated to the margins being the freak circuses and museums the most characteristic ones. In this sense, my main aim is to verify how grotesque beings, especially women, deal with violence and societal normalizing demands which exclude them from the reality of so-called normal people. This study also seeks to identify the grotesque as a device for questioning societies that do not tolerate deviants. Supported by different theories on the grotesque, by psychoanalytical notions of abjection and by gender performance theories, I attempt to investigate how the female characters in these novels react to certain traditional concepts of behavior in which perfect bodies, virginity, marriage and motherhood are basic conditions of virtue shaping the ideal woman.