A Obscena Senhora D à luz da paratopia

Abstract

Our work gives focus to the book “A Obscena Senhora D” (2001), by Hilda Hilst, to investigate, through French discourse Analysis, a theme that permeates the Hilstian Literature: Madness. To substantiate our research, we call upon some important researchers of Hilstian works, such as Pécora (2010), of madness, such as Frayse-Pereira (1982), and of Discourse Analysis, such as Maingueneau (2008). According to Maingueneau (2008) the paratopia is “a difficult trade between the place and the non-place, a parasitic location which depends on its own impossibility to establish itself”; this way, it can be said that the mad ones are in a “paratopic” zone, since madness is left outside of what is usually seen as normal. From the hypothesis that the book’s main character develops a discourse that is natural of the mad or the insane, our aims are to research the “paratopic” marks of madness on the mentioned book and show how it constitutes a rich observation material of the madness within Hilstian literature, a feature that can transcend this research to other bibliographical sources. In conclusion, through samples of the book, we conclude that Hilst unbalances the concept of normality moored to common-sense and reveals madness and sanity intertwined.