Resumen de Socially Rooted Authoritarianism in Lygia Fagundes Telles’s As meninas

Rex P. Nielson

• Lygia Fagundes Telles’s novel As meninas portrays the oppressive social atmosphere of Brazil’s authoritarian military dictatorship in a way that few other novels accomplish. Though the novel eschews the documentary romance-reportagem mode famously adopted by other writers from the period, As meninas provides a poignant expression of the psychological and emotional burdens caused by living under an authoritarian regime. While presenting the interior/psychological lives of three young women through a unique tri-voiced, stream-of-consciousness narration, the novel unveils and examines the stereotypes and gender roles assigned to women in Brazilian society at the time. In doing so, the novel resists patriarchal authoritarianism where it most insidiously remains ingrained: the social structure of the family.