Childhood and trauma in the tale “O aprendizado de Mariazinha”, by Bernardo Kucinski

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of the presence of characterizing aspects of different types of violence, suffered and witnessed, both by the child character Mariazinha and the young prisoner Roberto, both portrayed in the short story “O aprendizado de Mariazinha”, which makes up the collection A cicatriz e outras histórias: (quase) todos os contos de B. Kucinski, published by the famous writer Bernardo Kucinski in 2021, as well as the traumas resulting from the horrible experiences lived by the girl, while observing the way in which the work promotes intertextuality with some fairy tales widely known as “Three Little Pigs”, “Cinderella” and “Rapunzel”. The work will be analyzed considering historical and social aspects, as well as the political context in force during the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship that ravaged the country for just over two decades, in an attempt to better understand the relationship established between violence and childhood, whilst highlighting the place of resistance occupied by the author's fictional production, who incessantly seeks to keep the horrible events of the period alive in his reader's memory, without ever forgetting those who suffered so much, and still suffer, as a result of them. The theoretical contribution will include studies by authors such as Roland Barthes, Júlio Cortázar, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Jacques Rancière, Wilberth Salgueiro and José Luiz Fiorin.