The purpose of this research is to examine the diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus, written over a period of years beginning in 1955, and published as a book. The plan of the research will be to show how Carolina's experiences demonstrate the triple threat of sex and gender, class, and race in the urban slum environment (favela) of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
To speak of a life in the slums of Sao Paulo is to speak of a life of entrapment, and this is the experience that Carolina writes about in her diary with regard to her position as a woman in Brazilian slum society. She is what today would be called a single parent, but this is for her an afterthought. Her principal concern is to describe her life and the wretchedness of the favela and the favelados, or people who live in it. Additionally, within her life, hunger is the defining factor of existence. It is the decisive negative experience referred to throughout the book.
At the same time, certain moral and ethical abstractions influence Carolina's existence. As a woman whose biology has in part been her destiny, she is basically without options in the world. Although she liked school as a youngster, she was forced by her mother to give it up and help support her family. Knowing little except subsistence living, she took up with one man, then another, and obtained as her reward two illegitimate children for whom she must provide. There are no meaningful employment opportunities for her, no trades open to her; nor does it once occur to her that she could seek anything like professional advancement. This is a curious silence in the book, and yet Carolina does want to escape the favela. Her method is to become a favelada version of the lady "scribbler." This is the basis for her writing of novels, plays, and the diary.
As a woman, Carolina is aware that she faces special problems, even though she does not particularly explore why these problems inhere in her womanhood. Meanwhile, however,...