The autopsy of femicide in the fiction of Marina Colasanti e Patrícia Melo

Abstract

This article presents a study on the different ways in which conjugal femicide is represented in the narratives of Marina Colasanti and Patrícia Melo. For these authors, the repertoire of femicide is related to misogynistic values, which intertwine the cult of male honor and the hatred of women arising from the conservative patriarchal tradition. In this type of crime, there is a set of codes, shared collectively, that are part of a spectral language according to Giorgio Agamben (2010). Among them, we highlight: "permission to kill", according to Lia Zanotta Machado (2019); "macho brotherhood", articulated by Rita Segato (2005); and "symbolic annihilation", according to the studies by Lourdes Bandeira and Maria José Magalhães (2019). In this discussion, we identify how Colasanti e Melo questions the permanence of these codes through a moral autopsy of femicide.