Selene De Lima Maria and Her Encapsulation of the Independent Brazilian Woman, by Alexis Burney and Elle McGill

Alexis Burney and Elle McGill

Paula Gandara

WGS 383

May 10, 2014

Selene De Lima Maria and Her Encapsulation of the Independent Brazilian Woman

“I mean that we should always seek our dreams, they are difficult, but not impossible. For example, I will make my dream come true one day and publish my book of poems and more. But while I wait I will doing what I like, like fundraiser events for schools and churches. I was born to serve and love my neighbor; this is the biggest and best rewards in the life of any human being, pity that many still do not know this.”

                                                                        Selene De Lima Maria - “The Lost Youth”

Our REBRA writer, Selene De Lima Maria, was born in 1945 in Barra Do Cuiete, Minas Gerais. Selene loves the rural area and she refers to it as “ very nice, wonderful, but only to those who love silence and have no need to develop their professional or student abilities” (Maria). She grew up in the rural areas and came from a poor background. Her father died from shock after being crushed by logs, leaving her mother with lost memory and as a lonely widow. Much of their property was possessed by other people, which her mother had to recover. During her youth in Minas Gerais, she had experienced times where the deities of the spiritual world would visit her or those who she had known. They would leave her messages that gave her a sense of purpose to succeed. Those particular experiences remained in silence until she moved to Rio De Janeiro. There, she began writing what she had experienced to spread the truth.

She speaks the truth in four stories that convey her message clearly, the message that pride is possible even in the most terrible of situations. The message begins with her story ‘Youth Lost’, where she discusses the time she and her sister had to abide to the traditions of the Brazilian culture. In contrast, her stories “Legend or Truth” and “Seeing Is Believing” describe the spiritual world making contact with her and her desires for the life she wanted to obtain. Lastly, the story “The Chosen” discusses the common theme of the patriarchal society waiting for the fall of women uprising. All in all, in many of Selene stories she expresses the troubles that have happened and that are currently happening in Brazil. Most importantly all of Selene’s stories, her background and her stances on political and religious issues encase the type of strong, independent Brazilian women we have been learning about all semester. Interestingly enough, Selene’s most prominent message, which we understood through her emails, is to give back and help the community while she continually progresses towards her dreams.   

Many writers have a message encoded into their stories, but what makes Selene’s significant would be the fact that she has experienced a rough transition. That transition, similar to many other Brazilian women, would be coming out of the rural area to the city. Because of this, she has experienced more and has more of a voice than someone who is born into the city. For many authors, it is up to their audience to understand and interpret the messages within their stories. As readers, it is obvious that Selene is very vulnerable within her writing, especially in her story “Youth Lost”. She places the audience into her mind and stories, inviting us to experience what she has. Selene came from the rural area as an open minded woman and maintained her beliefs which were embedded into her writing. Her spirituality and encounters with the unknown, play a huge part in relaying her message to the reader’s. They tell the struggle of women in Brazil along with the fight that they are still engaged in. Although, in her stories, she depicts them as a journey that serves as a way to defy the “natural order” of the Society made by men.  In her email, she said “I write about [the struggle] to see if the law will help us one day” (Maria). Her writing about the struggle made us think about elements of Candomble, with can be used into a decision for her and women who share the same beliefs.

In a couple of our classes, we have discussed the Afro-Brazilian spirituality which influences many Brazilian writers work. For example, in Poncia, we talked about the Serpent Ouroboros being a representation of a shaman of the peoples pain and struggle. This is because Ouroboros represents self reflection and a recreation of the self. This spirituality is represented in Candomble through the Orixá Oxumaré. This religion is derived from the African culture which has a mixture of  “Yoruba, Fon, Bantu, and Ewe Beliefs” (BBC). Some aspects of the Candomble are combined with the religion Catholicism.  This can be an explanation as to why it is significantly shown in two of Selene stories. To have a better understanding of these stories it is important to note Selene’s thoughts on religion which we spoke about through our emails. She claimed that if people were more respectable to others faith “we could all work to try and live in peace and union among all people” and that her religion is extremely important to her (Maria).

Throughout the semester we had frequently spoken of the significance of religion/spirituality and religious symbols throughout the various texts and movies. Interestingly enough Selene also has a serpent/snake in her story “Seeing Is Believing” even though it does not stand for the totality that Oxumaré represents. Since it is widely known that within Catholicism snakes often represent the devil and/or evil, one could argue that her use of snakes stands for the evil she encountered while living in a rural area. The story of “Seeing Is Believing” tells Selene’s experiences of being on her uncle's farm as horse hair turns into snakes. Selene is extremely adamant about the fact that the horse hairs actually turned into snakes, it was not an illusion or a dream. Selene does not talk about the snakes with ill will. In fact she speaks of them with admiration and amazement. Even though she does not speak of them badly the snakes can still represent the repression she felt from living in a rural area. Another interesting aspect of Catholicism is the idea that when the wine is blessed and turned into Jesus’ blood, Catholics believe it is actually Jesus’ blood and no longer wine. It’s possible that Selene wanted this story to be interpreted under a religious and spiritual lens, or, perhaps, she was solely wanted to tell her story. It is also likely that because Selene is such a religious person, as she told us, that her religion makes its way into her stories, regardless.

Selene, though expressing her concerns from a rural perspective, uses this same factor to talk about both the social class discrimination and women’s limited rights. In our opinion, Selene uses Afro-Brazilian spirituality to say that a message was given to her in order to have the power to fight. This is shown in the story “Seeing is Believing”, where she uses the uncanny to describe the disrupt order that exists in Brazil. She describes it metaphorically when she says “Despite of being fragile the little dog bravely faced a real brute with her soft barks till the day the wild animal entered the porch and all of a sudden swallowed her whole and alive” (Maria 1). This description is a representation of what she has experienced to what she has come to see in the city. It gives a voice which says that women may have rights but they are still small, compared to that of a man. As soon as a woman begins to make movements, she is still drowned out by the presences of masculinity. Thus the Independent woman is being silenced and thus recedes back into their “respective manner”.

Another common theme and genre among Brazilian writers and one we referred to frequently throughout the semester, is the fantastic. Though Selene stories are based on actual events that happen to her, one could perceive it as being under this particular category. The fantastic is defined by Cristina Ferreira-Pinto in her article “The Fantastic, The Gothic and The Grotesque in Contemporary Brazilian Novels” as “serving to highlight the ambiguous position of women in a male-centered order, to underline their marginality” (Ferreira-Pinto 72). Another important aspect of the fantastic is the focus on the contemporary, middle-class where Selena can be placed. Ferreira-Pinto also mentions the conflict, or split, that is present in many ‘fantastic’ stories. This conflict is most common among the women characters and women authors like Selene. “It is the conflict between the characters’ desires and aspirations, on one hand, and the demands and obstacles still imposed by the social order, on the other hand, that originates ambiguity and absurdity highlighted by the use of the fantastic and the gothic” (Ferreira-Pinto, 73). This is prominent and relevant in the story “The Chosen”. Selene questions the small recognition that women have made, “Always expect improvements. / Achievements are few and far and there are almost no victories. / Progress at a snail’s pace,” (Chosen 1). She questions whether the progress can be called achievements if there are no victories. Due to the lack of victories, Selene states without hesitation that the men are waiting for the fall of the uprising of women and watching their every move. “Search definition 
/ Of men who go there 
/ Commanding our days 
/ To prevent further slippage 
/ Hurting the populace 
/ Who knows if in the future” (The Chosen, 1). Here we see that similar and overarching conflict and split of the women wanting equality but still falling short to the men and the implied social and economic injustices they so frequently face.

The fantastic can also be seen in Selene’s story “Seeing is Believing.” We all know that it is physically impossible for horse hairs to turn into snakes. The story goes: “My grandparents, my mother and my uncles used to tell me a story that horsehair changed into a snake in rainy days, but only in some of them by the puddles” (Seeing Is Believing, 1). Even at the end of the story Selene reiterates the idea that she actually saw the horse hairs turn into snakes. As it was mentioned previously, perhaps Selene and her family saw the snakes as a symbol of holding her back. This is where the shift, or split, of the fantastic would come into play. Selene feels held back by the life of being a rural woman, like many Brazilian women, but sees little to no opportunity in leaving her secure life for the uncertainty of the city. The snakes, even though it is subtle, have brought this idea to light. 

One of the most important topics we talked about with Selene was her views on feminism and women in Brazil. Like many of the REBRA writers we discovered that Selene was a feminist and worried about the futures of women in Brazil. She said “women aren’t equal to men in Brazil, we’ve been fighting for a long time but women make less money even if more qualified for the same job” (Maria). She then expressed her concern for the many women in men who act as “Amelia” type for “macho” men who just want maids and no companions. She enlightened us on the fact that there are women, at least two or three a day, in Brazil that are being murdered by their masochistic husbands. Not only did Selene express concern, she also provided a solution: “If only the government gave equal rights. The justice system in Brazil is too slow and too sexist.” But she is hopeful because of the fight women have been putting up against men. Selene’s feminism and women strength is made apparent in her story “Youth Lost” as she recollects the experiences her sister and herself went through with her sisters husband. Selene recalls many moments when her sisters husband, who was older by thirty years, beat and abused both her and her sister. But she also tells of her heroic acts of standing up to him, “I looked at him and said, because I can cut I will not take and also because I'm not afraid of you, just because you're big, if anything me or my sister you will die because God is seeing everything” (Maria). Not only does this story show the strong sense of Selene’s feminism but her trust and strength in knowing God and her religion.

Overall, Selene’s feminism, her background and her stances on political and religious issues encase the type of strong, independent Brazilian women we have been learning about all semester. We were also able to see and understand Selene’s most prominent message, to give back and help the community while she continually progresses towards her dreams. Selene was such a wonderful and interesting person to speak with throughout the semester. It’s inspiring to see her belief in the Church and her religion as well as equal rights for women in Brazil. Through examining her stories such as “Youth Lost” and “The Chosen” it is easy to see that Selene’s progression toward becoming a writer stemmed from her childhood experiences and her transition from her rural life to life in the city of Rio de Janeiro.  

Thank you Mrs. Selene, for allowing us to read you work. We gratefully appreciate the openness to our questions. You have been a great help with our project and allowed us to express a piece of your life the class through your writing. My partner and I hope that all goes well. Please keep writing and continue to have hope that the government listens to the words that you carry within your soul. You are a brave woman and we commend you for all you are contributing to the Brazilian Society. Continue to progress with the faith that has been bestowed upon you. The time of the Brazilian Woman Right’s is on its way.

                                                            Bibliography

Selene De Lima Maria. “Questions about the struggles of Brazil.” Alexis Burney and Ellie

McGill. 24 April 2014 (Email) 

"Religions - Candomblé: Candomblé at glance". BBC. 15 September 2009. Retrieved 7

January 2014.

Ferreira-Pinto, Cristina.  The Fantastic, the Gothic, and the Grotesque in Contemporary   Brazilian Women's Novels http://www.jstor.org/stable/29741285 Chasqui: revista de literatura

latinoamericana Vol. 25, No. 2 (Nov., 1996) , pp. 71-80