Donzelas, noivas e donas: educação e formação na obra de Júlia Lopes de Almeida

Abstract

The representation of women in literature has received attention and still finds a vast field of possibilities for problematization. Studies involving personalities "forgotten/silenced" over time have gained momentum, portraying the importance of women in the history of Brazilian intellectual production, including the writer Júlia Lopes de Almeida, who achieved great prominence on the Brazilian intellectual scene. She wrote about women and for women, exposing the behavior, perceptions, and aspirations of this social group at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The theme of this work is structured around the question of how women and female education are characterized in the works of Julia Lopes de Almeida, with the guiding problem being how the representations that the author set out to propagate about women, education and the teaching profession were constructed at a time when society underwent significant transformations. The hypothesis was that the representations in her works were influenced by and reflected the author's upbringing, education, social world, and interpersonal relationships. The general objective was to understand how women, female education and training are portrayed in the behavior manuals, Livro das Noivas and Livro das Donas e Donzellas, and in the novels Memórias de Martha, A Intrusa and Correio da Roça, by Júlia Lopes de Almeida. To this end, the specific objectives are: to analyze how the writer's intellectual background and interpersonal relationships form determining aspects of her writing, in the dissemination of her ideas and professional success; to characterize the behavioral manuals with the construction of a discourse for female intellectual formation based on education and professionalization; to investigate the teacher's characters and their representations in the novels and the contribution of education to the trajectory of each one. The methodology is characterized as qualitative, historical and documentary. The author occupies a unique position among Brazilian writers. She belonged to a socially privileged class and her upbringing, education and knowledge network are elements that may have enabled her to stand out as a writer. The analysis of the manuals showed that the chronicles, in a pedagogical and scientific tone, focused on caring for the home, conjugal, family and social life, the arts and fashion. The analysis of the novels highlighted women in the teaching profession, with specific characteristics such as socio-economic status, dedication and a vocation for teaching. The aim was to analyze how the writer highlighted the role of education and work as pillars for the individual and collective development of society and defended a female social role, but linked to submission to the husband, and dedication to the family and home. At the end of the analysis, it was understood that her differential was having a perception of the context in which she lived, perceiving the changing relationships, the need to select the clashes and the possibilities of actions.