Slightly illegal

female positions and perceptions of law from “The Girl in the Photograph”, by Lygia Fagundes Telles

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2023/68224i

Published in 1973 and set in the Brazilian civil military dictatorship (1964-1985), the novel The girl in the photograph, by Lygia Fagundes Telles, accompanies three young women living in a boarding school who build, in alternate voices, a complex narrative capable of covering both everyday life and the socio-political reality of the  period. Through an analysis of law in the literature, the present research focused on the  positions of the protagonists of the novel to investigate the many ways that Law can take on in its relationship with people, especially women – or, better, how its presence (or absence) can result in oppression and violence. It was concluded, in the end, not only the revolutionary potential of testimony literature for the revival of collective memory and the denunciation of social injustices, but also – and mainly – the permanence of the criticisms extracted from the novel to the sexist, indifferent and conniving structures of the Brazilian law.

Keywords: Dictatorship; Law; Literature; Feminism; Testimony.