O Quarto de Despejo by Carolina Maria de Jesus

Literature as a denunciation of the trauma of placelessness

Abstract

This work aims to study trauma in psychoanalysis and its social aspects through the work O Quarto de Despejo, Diário de uma Favelada by Carolina Maria de Jesus, an account of a life of suffering experienced by the author herself. Based on fragments of the work, we will analyze trauma from a psychoanalytic perspective, observing the socio-political aspects that contribute to the exacerbation of this helplessness. To this end, in addition to Carolina Maria de Jesus's book, we will use the works of Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, the psychoanalytic dictionary by Laplanche and Pontalis, the book In Praise of Literature by Zygmunt Bauman and Riccardo Mazzeo, Walter Benjamin's text The Storyteller, and Frantz Fanon's text Black Skin, White Masks. The choice of this particular work stems from the importance reflecting on human rights regarding education, using literature as a sensitizing element: for the formation of ethical and civic-minded individuals, it is also necessary to cultivate empathetic human beings, and literature presents itself as a privileged vehicle for the development of this sensitivity.