Rotas em fuga – a saga de Carolina Maria de Jesus em uma perspectiva rizomática

Abstract

This work presents, as a starting point, my concerns about the Blacks which I have developed throughout my career as a teacher. With this problematic situation in view, I use Carolina Maria de Jesus‘s discourse, an author from Minas Gerais, to allow me to make new considerations as regards the place, or to the in-between space designed for the Blacks in the end of the twentieth century and its reverberations in the years to come. I believe that the narrative by this author expands itself in a way as to signal that Gilberto Freyre‘s announced racial democracy neglected the Blacks as participants of the national history, rather than included them within a social, republican perspective of a capitalist nature as it was meant for that period. From such an obstacle, I observe that in some of Carolina de Jesus‘ productions the real contradictions of the historical process - from a monarchical system to a republican one - are brought to light; so much so, that it is possible to perceive the procedures of exclusion and exploitation this ethnicity has been submitted since that time. By rescuing this complex figure of identity and difference, I conclude that the ‗carolineano‘ discourse manifests itself through Foucalt‘s fold and it imposes itself as a ‗glowing existence‘, where a saga emerges and is accomplished through an unsteady search for agency. Reading her narratives lead us to take into account Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and consider their thoughts as viable resources to attain a different signification to understand Maria Carolina de Jesus‘discourse. From a rhizomatic perspective it is possible to state her narratives point to the rupture of the norms of a culture built upon homogeneous patterns.