Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: ANDRESSA FREITAS DOS SANTOS

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : ANDRESSA FREITAS DOS SANTOS
DATE: 26/09/2025
TIME: 14:30
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: 65
BIG AREA: Lingüística, Letras e Artes
AREA: Letras
SUBÁREA: Literaturas Estrangeiras Modernas
SUMMARY:

Literature produced by transgender authors has grown significantly in recent decades, both in number of writers and in critical reach, revealing new ways of narrating experiences of gender. Nowadays, Canadian writer Casey Plett is recognized 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 precariousness, alcoholism, and emotional crises. This research analyzes the representation of Wendy Reimer through a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective articulated with transfeminism. The central research question is to investigate to what extent discourses of oppression and resistance contribute to the representation of Wendy Reimer as a character and what axiological positions are represented in the narrative. The main objective is to examine the representation of the character in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociological stylistics (2014; 2020; 2022). This work also engages with theoretical contributions from transfeminism, showing that Wendy’s trajectory can only be understood through the articulation of multiple oppressions and the mechanisms of resistance that emerge from her bonds of friendship. In this sense, the transfeminist reading demonstrates that the notions of near-life (Stanley, 2011) and the bad affects that produce strategies of numbness as survival (Malatino, 2022) are 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, highlighting the importance of community and affective ties built around her chosen family (Capello; Miller, 2023) as forms of resistance. Furthermore, the analysis shows that Wendy’s precariousness can only be understood intersectionally (Collins; Bilge, 2021; Akotirene, 2019), since cisnormativity imposes barriers that intersect with social and economic marginalization, confirming Nascimento’s (2021) reflections on the structural limits imposed on dissident bodies. Thus, it is concluded that Wendy Reimer’s experience represents the complexities of contemporary trans existence, which often oscillates between a state of near-life and strategies that seek numbness and withdrawal from the present reality. The interaction between the character and her friends also reveals that the affective networks within her chosen family function as practices of resistance and reconstruction, emphasizing the importance of community (Plett, 2023) and trans sorority as forms of survival.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1000286 - ORISON MARDEN BANDEIRA DE MELO JUNIOR
Interno - ***.237.186-** - TITO MATIAS FERREIRA JÚNIOR - NÃO INFORMADO
Externa à Instituição - BIA CRISPIM DE ALMEIDA