HISTÓRIAS SOBRE PLANTAS E ANIMAIS: PODER E REPRESENTAÇÃO DO MUNDO NATURAL NA CONTÍSTICA DE DORIS LESSING

STORIES ABOUT PLANTS AND ANIMALS: POWER AND NATURAL WORLD REPRESENTATION IN DORIS LESSING’S SHORT STORIES

Abstract

Literary studies have often been inspired by the natural world and naturalist theses, although they frequently fail to consider obvious distinctions between elements of different socio-environmental realities and ignore some issues related to the development of Capitalism and Imperialism. Natural configurations in African nations often point to these problems, as well as presenting peculiar spaces and types when compared to the environmental culture of the West. This paper seeks to investigate these configurations by analyzing the categories of narrators and characters in some short stories by Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013). To do this, we begin by looking at the problem of representation, power and the dialectic between nature and culture, followed by a reading of the natural world in Greg Garrard (2004), Keith Thomas (1996), Jacques Derrida (2002), Jopi Nyman (2003) and Patricia Marion Louw (2003), among others. We try to show, based on these and other authors, that Ecocriticism, Cultural Studies and related theories develop an examination of the socio-economic, spatial and cultural aspects of the representation of the natural world in literature that are present in a peculiar way in the African short stories analyzed, such as discovery, refuge, misogyny, racism, exploitation, instinct and death. In view of this, we suggest that some of the author’s devices create a universe that contrasts the African world with that of Europe. These facts result in tales that highlight the intimate relationship between humans and animals and plants, in contrast to a divergent socio-environmental reality and marks such as subservience, domination and affection.