THE DISPLACEMENT OF THE CHARACTER CLEMENTINA IN THE SHORT STORY O QUEIXO, BY MARIA ONDINA BRAGA: A STYLISTIC STUDY

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate how the displacement of Clementina, protagonist of the short-story “O queixo”, by Maria Ondina Braga, is constructed, and to observe how the theoretical and practical contributions from stylistics colaborate for an interpretation of this type. Compounded by linguistic and non-linguistic elements, which cause strangement to and/or bring the attention of the reader, the style of a literary text could have meaning, producing relevant clues to found its interpretation. The hypothesis is that the displacement of Clementina, to which converge her marginalization, objetification, and inferiorization, can be verified in the style employed in “O queixo”. For testing this assumption, the analysis considers certain passagens of the short-story from a stylistic perspective and tries to observe if other excerpts from the text reverberate the same analysis, paying attention to the narrative’s unity. This inquiry has discovered that the tonal, spatial, elliptical, syntactical, morphological, and lexical aspects, in relation to themselves and other excerpts from the short-story, are particularly relevant to the construction of the displacement of Clementina, attest the importance of the reader’s perception regarding style, and underline the pertinence of stylistics as an analytical resource for interpreting a literary work.