Envelhecer como mulher : intersecções de gênero, idade, classe e raça nas protagonistas de Elena Ferrante

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the representation of female aging in the work of Elena Ferrante from an intersectional feminist perspective that articulates the categories of gender, class, age, and race. Starting from the observation that aging remains marginal to literary narratives and to hegemonic feminist debates, the study analyzes the novels Troubling Love (2017), The Lying Life of Adults (2020), The Lost Daughter (2016), and The Story of the Lost Child (2023). Methodologically, the research is grounded in a bibliographic review and literary analysis anchored in intersectional feminism, highlighting aging as a category of oppression that remains underexplored. The theoretical framework is based on bell hooks's (2015) definition of oppression, as well as on studies of the categories of gender, race, class, and age by: Joan Scott (2014, 1992); Virginia Woolf (2014); Simone de Beauvoir (2019); bell hooks (2021); Angela Davis (2016); Audre Lorde (2014, 2019); Kristen R. Ghodsee (2018); Silvia Federici (2021); Susan Pickard (2016); Simone de Beauvoir (2018); and Mirian Goldenberg (2013). The analysis shows that, in Ferrante's narratives, female aging is not configured as an isolated or purely biological process, but rather as an experience deeply intertwined with gender and class-based oppressions, encompassing themes such as motherhood, the body, sexuality, work, and friendship. A significant racial erasure is also observed in the works analyzed, understood as a structural silence that limits the intersectional complexity of these representations. The study concludes that Ferrante's literature offers important contributions to contemporary feminist debate, while also highlighting the need to expand discussions of female aging toward more diverse, racialized perspectives situated outside the European axis. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]