Violence and gender in “Violentada”, a short story by Rafael Gallo, and in Adelaide Ivánova’s poetry

Abstract

Violence against women is a global public health issue, but only recently its eradication became a prominent goal in the international human rights organizations’ agenda. Yet this topic is not a current theme in contemporary Brazilian literature, as pointed out by the main researches in the field (Dalcastagnè, 2010), a symptom of the invisibility of this issue in our society. From the analysis of the short story “Violentada” [“Raped”], by the Brazilian author Rafael Gallo, published in 2012, this article seeks to reflect on the portrayal of violence against women in contemporary Brazilian literature of male authorship by discussing the various types of violence suffered by the main character in light of gender studies, studies on violence and feminist literary criticism. In order to reflect on the social perspective of both authors (Young, 2006) and the representation of violence against women, this article presents as a counterpoint poems by Adelaide Ivánova, published in the book O martelo [“The Hammer”] (2017), which address the subject of rape.