What is on the other side? Images of absence in children’s literature

Abstract

Considering the role of literature in the formation of the individual, the objective of this work is to perform a critical-interpretative reading of how absence, understood from the frontier themes (MARTHA, 2010), can be addressed in children’s literature to shape emotions and feelings of the child’s universe. Menina amarrotada (2013), by Aline Abreu, and Pai Francisco (2015), by Marina Miyazaki Araujo, constitute the literary corpus chosen for this analysis, in which we follow the emancipation of the characters and the establishment of the identification process between child readers and the beings of the fictional world, responsible for providing the receptors with the possibility of reflecting on their condition and elaborating their image as beings in the world. To this end, in addition to Martha (2010), the theoretical contributions of Bettelheim (1978), Turchi (2004), Petit (2019), among others, are used. Thus, it is hoped to broaden the discussions on the frontier themes in children’s narratives.