O Discurso da dor feminina invisível

um estudo de caso sobre Evelyn Scott no Exílio Brasileiro, em Escapada

Abstract

This paper analyses the woman pain discourse drawing from Evelyn Scott’s Escapade, her autobiography written during her experience of self imposed exile in Brazil, from the years 1914 through to 1919. The analysis points out the influence of gender in the interactions established between the woman, in the position of parturient, and the stuff of health professionals involved, which also has a woman in the team. When Evelyn Scott is in pain, she experiences a strange relationship between mind and body. During acute pain in labor, she ascribes positive value to this emotion, and later, when she suffers chronic pain, the writer seems to rely on the pain triggered by the body to bring life to the mind. More specifically we examine the relationship between pain and gender when discourse becomes the only evidence available to the legitimation of the woman’s pain. Discursively, the delegitimization of Evelyn Scott’s pain by the health professionals provokes the feeling of invisibility and erasement of her identity as well as objectification of her body. Although factors such as social class and race influence this process of delegitimization of pain, we observe the predominance of gender issues, including from the part of the only woman of the medical stuff, who reveals the desire to punish Scott for having a behavior viewed as hysterical.