A escriba e a prostituta : a representação da alterjudeidade feminina na ficção de Moacyr Scliar

Abstract

The present work analyses two female characters from two Moacyr Scliar’s novels: The woman who wrote the Bible (1999) and The cicle of the waters (1975). The books show a writer, the Ugly, and an immigrant, Esther, who is obligated to work as a prostitute. The study focuses on the condition of Jewishness which evokes another condition called alter- Jewishness in the ficcional representation. For that, a literary study of the two Jewish descendant characters has been done interfacing philosophical and psychoanalytical theories that approach the ethic, otherness and Jewishness themes. The research has shown that otherness has been represented in the narratives as a way to set up a female alter-Jewishness, a disidentification process, which gravitates in a space beyond the Jewish identity. Through this neologism – alter-Jewishness – the aim of this work is to create an opportunity to reflect on the fragile condition of Jewishness that has been subjected a great amount of people for decades, establishing an awkwardness that leads to otherness.