A SEREIA QUE SE FEZ ULISSES

Inversão e agência feminina em Nélida Piñon

Abstract

This paper analyzes the strategies of gender norm destabilization in the short story “A Sereia Ulisses” (2012), by Nélida Piñon. The study examines how the protagonist is constructed within the plot and how her interactions with other characters subvert social expectations. This comprises bibliographic and interpretive research, grounded in the immanent reading of the literary text and dialogue with critical scholarship. The theoretical framework articulates the concepts of gender performativity by Judith Butler (2018) and symbolic violence by Pierre Bourdieu (1999). The relevance of the investigation lies in the critical discussion regarding women's social position and the literary representation of resistance. The central contribution of this study is to demonstrate that the character P.N. acts as a catalyzing agent who exposes the fragility and artificiality of hegemonic masculinities, dismantling them through corporal and symbolic acts. It is concluded that Piñon, by reconfiguring the femme fatale in the context of the 1980s, not only forges a new female subject but uses this journey to question the bases of patriarchal power in Brazilian literature.