O nome da filha: Sexualidade, identidade e o ato de narrar em Grande Sertao: Veredas

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the issues of desire, sexuality and gender in the formation of the self. Specifically I look at the self-defining act of narratingdesire, homosexual desire, in a heteronormative world. Riobaldo, the narrator, does not take on the classic search for the Father in the novel Grande Sertao: Veredas. Instead, what becomes important is the son, who turns out to be the daughter. This refusal of the search for the Patriarch produces explorations into the workings of patriarchy itself, with its iconic, fetishized image of the dead body of a woman being held in poignant comparison with the complex, living, yet socially unacceptable relationship of the two principal male characters.