"Eu que antes de comer via o céu, as árvores, as aves tudo amarelo, depois que comi, tudo normalizou-se aos meus olhos" : um olhar sobre a fome em Quarto de Despejo : Diário de uma Favelada, de Carolina Maria de Jesus

Abstract

Hunger in Brazil is a historical problem that is intrinsically linked to a number of factors, including social inequality, poverty and income concentration, which are the result of the failure to implement public policies to combat hunger. In this sense, this dissertation aims to analyze the representation of hunger in the novel Quarto de despejo: diário de uma favelada, by Carolina Maria de Jesus. The guiding questions for this research were as follows: a) the importance of Carolina Maria de Jesus for Afro-feminine Brazilian literature, b) the ways in which hunger is presented to us in Quarto de despejo, c) the existence of continuity in the situations reported by Carolina Maria in Quarto de despejo, considering that the work was published in 1960. The study is structured in three chapters: Chapter 1. Plots of the History of an Unequal Brazil; Chapter 2. Carolina's writings and chapter 3: Hungry for what? The analysis showed that: 1) hunger affects a higher percentage of black people, the result of a slave heritage that insists on remaining today, 2) hunger shows a higher percentage among black women, a current reality, the consequence of an inefficient or non-existent support network and domestic violence due to economic vulnerability, 3) there is a relationship between hunger and suicide, since the latter has an intrinsic relationship with the social environment in which that individual lives, 4) as a literary aesthetic, hunger is presented as an escape from the reality of the environment in which the writer lived, and also as a denunciation of the same environment that strips human beings of their dignity. Therefore, hunger continues in our century, which is consolidated by social exclusion and income concentration, generating extreme poverty and people in a situation of severe food insecurity.