Banca de DEFESA: ANDRESSA FREITAS DOS SANTOS

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : ANDRESSA FREITAS DOS SANTOS
DATE: 06/07/2026
TIME: 15:00
LOCAL: Google Meet
TITLE:

Transexuality in the novel Little Fish: a dialogical analysis of the character Wendy Reimer's oppression and resistence 

KEY WORDS:

Little Fish; Wendy Reimer; character; discourse; transfeminism

PAGES: 126
BIG AREA: Lingüística, Letras e Artes
AREA: Letras
SUBÁREA: Literaturas Estrangeiras Modernas
SUMMARY:

Transgender literature has grown significantly over the past decades, both in the number of trans writers and in its critical reach, revealing new ways of narrating gendered experience. In this context, the Canadian writer Casey Plett stands out for her contribution to contemporary trans literature. In her novel Little Fish (2018), Plett presents the trajectory of Wendy Reimer, a trans woman who faces material precarity, alcoholism, and affective crises. In this sense, this dissertation aims to analyze the representation of Wendy Reimer from a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective articulated with transfeminism. The central research question guiding this study is the extent to which discourses of oppression and resistance contribute to Wendy Reimer’s construction as a character and which axiological positions are represented in the narrative. The main objective is to examine this representation in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociological stylistics (2014; 2020; 2022). At the same time, the dissertation engages with transfeminist theoretical contributions, arguing that Wendy’s trajectory can only be understood through the articulation of multiple forms of oppression and the mechanisms of resistance that emerge from her bonds of friendship. From this perspective, a transfeminist reading shows that the notions of near-life (Stanley, 2011) and the bad affects that produce strategies of numbing as a means of survival (Malatino, 2022) constitute mechanisms of oppression that shape the character’s everyday experience, limiting her possibilities for recognition and belonging. However, the novel also reveals that networks of friendship and care operate as practices of resistance and reconstruction, underscoring the importance of community and affective ties forged around chosen family (Capello; Miller, 2023). In addition, the analysis demonstrates that Wendy’s precarity can only be understood intersectionally (Collins; Bilge, 2021; Akotirene, 2019), since cisgenderness imposes barriers articulated with social and economic marginalization, confirming Nascimento’s (2021) reflections on the structural limits imposed on dissident bodies. Thus, the dissertation concludes that Wendy Reimer’s experience represents the complexities of contemporary transfeminine experience, which often fluctuates between a state of near-life and strategies of numbing and detachment from the present reality. The interaction between the character and her friends also shows that the bonds of chosen family operate as practices of resistance and reconstruction, highlighting the importance of community (Plett, 2023) and trans sisterhood for sustaining life.

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