O caráter utópico da busca identitária em duas autoras contemporâneas : Lya Luft e Bharati Mukherjee

Abstract

This study examines the course of the protagonists of the novels A asa esquerda do anjo and Jasmine, starting from the identity perspective, informed by the Cultural Studies, having as the main theorists Bhabha (1998) and Hall (1992) and by the Utopian Studies, through the work of Ernst Bloch (1959), as well as by questions related to gender, which use theoretical approaches by Buttler (2003) and Costa (1996). From these conceptual fields, the fundamental elements that guide the readings contained in this dissertation are constituted. Considering the works A asa esquerda do anjo, by Lya Luft, and Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, an analysis related to the theoretical areas mentioned before is developed, for these novels offer a privileged study field, in which identity, cultural and utopian elements emerge. It is still observed that the studied works are part of contemporary context, revealing proper aspects to their time: multicultural societies, feeling of alienation, conflicts resulting from mass dislocation phenomena, confrontation between cultural traditions. Through the examination of the identity path of the protagonists in the referred works, in dialogue with the theoretical framework, the impossibility of recognition of an identity as a completed / closed structure is observed. Such a consideration indicates the major aim of our research: the understanding of the process in which the identity quest occurs through a comparative approach, as well as an investigation of the identity configuration as an inapprehensible element.