Imagens do feminino no conto Brooklyn, de Paule Marshall

Abstract

This article aims to analyze representations of the female body in the short story Brooklyn by Paule Marshall. We seek to understand how the author draws on the artwork Anna, the Javanese by Paul Gauguin in order to denounce the objectification and sexualization of non-white women. We also establish a connection with the colonial past and the ways in which racism and sexism manifest themselves in the present. To this end, we conducted qualitative bibliographic research based on the contributions of Grada Kilomba (2019) and Anne McClintock (2010). From this investigation, we observed the persistence of the colonizer’s gaze directed at racialized women, making it possible to draw a parallel between the objectification of the short story’s protagonist, Miss Williams, and the girl depicted by Gauguin.