Maria Bonita e Dadá: uma breve releitura do cangaço por meio da presença determinante do elemento feminino

Abstract

This article aims at briefly analyzing the cangaceira, who is further less studied than the cangaceiro and the cangaço. We highlight Maria Bonita and Dadá here, the most famous and important of those women, who represented a way of life both dangerous and riveting. Ariano Suassuna, the yearning and prolific writer, playwriter, poet and essayist from Paraíba, who is honored in this issue of Revista Entrelaces, was inspired by the universe of cangaço. Even though, we notice that there is some lack of information about the cangaceiras in his work. That is why we have decided to study them in this paper in a brief way. This way, we did a bibliographical survey based on some theorists like Santos (2010), Freitas (2005) and Grunspan-Jasmin (2001) among others. First of all, we analyze the importance of cangaço for Brazilian Literature and Ariano Suassuna. Then, we focus on the difficulties those women had to face as cangaceiras; finally, we treat two of them shortly, who we consider the two most allegorical feminine illustrations relating to cangaço in Brazilian Northeast: Maria Bonita and Dadá. In order to understand them better, we analyze their profiles psychologically, according to Friedrich (1996), Ameno (2000), Dória (1981) and Nunes (2000), among others.