PERFIL DAS PROTAGONISTAS NA LITERATURA JOVEM (2010-2019): uma análise de narrativas das editoras Galera e Verus
Young adult. New adult. Chick-lit. Female authorship. Female protagonists.
This research outlines the panoramic profile of female protagonists in books published by publishing houses aimed at young audiences in order to analyze the representativity of such characters. For this purpose, a corpus of 32 books published between 2010 and 2019 was selected, 14 of them by the publishing house Galera and 18 by Verus, all written by Brazilian women, so that we could understand the contemporary female protagonists. The study was motivated by the low number of investigations that bring together literature for young people, female authorship, and the protagonists of recent works. Thus, the research was undertaken with the aim of investigating who they are, whom and what reality the female protagonists of novels for young people written by women represent. Therefore, the research makes a brief review of the history of youth literature in Brazil until reaching literature for young people, the formation of this reader and the aesthetics of these works and their derivations, such as Young adult, New adult, Crossover, as well as a retrospective of the Chick-lit term, its origin and construction. While the books were being read, the elements analyzed were: 1) the protagonist's name, 2) the protagonist's age, 3) the region where the story takes place, 4) the time of the story, 5) the character's skin color, 6) education, 7) socioeconomic conditions, 8) religion, 9) gender identity and sexual orientation, 10) incidence of professional relationships, 11) incidence of love relationships, 12) incidence of family relationships, 13) friendships/enmities, 14) incidence of sexual relationships, 15) approach of controversial issues such as abortion, mental disorders, suicide, LGBT+ and racial issues. The analysis points to a heterogeneity in the composition of the female protagonists of the two publishing houses, represented by white, heterosexual, middle-class characters, whose narratives are strongly shaped by the affective search, even though the desire for professional and personal conquests is recurrent.