Senhora
Profile of a Woman
Jose De Alencar author Catarina Feldmann Edinger translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Texas Press
Published:1st Mar '94
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
"... an extremely important novel ... quite startling in its revelations of money and gender as key social mechanisms in nineteenth-century Brazilian life." -- Daphne Patai, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and of Women's Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
In this Brazilian novel, originally published in 1875, the heroine uses newly inherited wealth to "buy back" and exact revenge on the fiancé who had left her for a woman with a more enticing dowry.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged . . ." that a single woman in possession of a good character but no fortune must be in want of a wealthy husband—that is, if she is the heroine of a nineteenth-century novel. Senhora, by contrast, turns the tables on this familiar plot. Its strong-willed, independent heroine Aurélia uses newly inherited wealth to "buy back" and exact revenge on the fiancé who had left her for a woman with a more enticing dowry.
This exciting Brazilian novel, originally published in 1875 and here translated into English for the first time, raises many questions about traditional gender relationships, the commercial nature of marriage, and the institution of the dowry. While conventional marital roles triumph in the end, the novel still offers realistic insights into the social and economic structure of Rio de Janeiro in the mid-1800s. With its unexpected plot, it also opens important new perspectives on the nineteenth-century Romantic novel.
ISBN: 9780292704503
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 454g
219 pages