Olhinhos de Gato: a menina (de) Cecília

Abstract

The representation of childhood in Brazilian literature can be studied from several perspectives, including the perspective of gender. Childhood - on your own point of view – is not developed in the literature speaks for itself. Considered an invention of the eighteenth century, as the main point of childhood studies, we allow ourselves to observe the various images of childhood represented in the literature, which would make it possible to have access to imagery on this theme, in most cases related to alleged natures innocent, suffering or bad, associated with children. The writer was once a child, though his experience is obscured by time and the evolution of his personality, taking it to a representation that usually involves a fictionalization of the child and his world. This paper proposes the study of the category “representation” in literature, which matches the main character, the girl “Olhinhos de gato” in the eponymous work of Cecilia Meireles, prose that presents autobiographical nature. We will look into that aspect takes the representation of the girl as well as his relationship with adults and other children along the plot. What child is depicted in children’s characters of “Olhinhos de gato”? Is this a representation idyllic childhood? The child is taken by her innocence and naivety?