A construção da identidade feminina da protagonista de Lucy, de Jamaica Kincaid

Abstract

The novel Lucy presents the story of the character that names the book, a nineteen-year-old girl who moves to a new country, where she will work as an au pair in a family household. With this change, Lucy is faced with a series of questions that will lead her in searching to build her identity. Thus, we propose to investigate in this work how the identity formation of the character occurs. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the historical, social, and cultural context in which she is inserted. To do so, we will address the concept of colonialism and post-colonialism (LOOMBA, 1998; HALL, 2003; BHABHA, 1998; MEMMI, 1977) and the social effect these terms have on the individuals involved in them (KINCAID, 1990). We will also focus on the fact that Lucy is a woman, and being inserted in a context that favors the double oppression she suffers (SPIVAK, 2010) we will discuss how female subjects are subjugated in power relations between genders). Lucy, being a black woman, does not occupy the same unprivileged place as other women. Hence it is necessary to dialogue with intersectional feminism (LUGONES, 2014; CRENSHAW, 1991), to understand the formation of female identity.