O Suicídio na literatura: uma análise discursiva crítica

Abstract

This dissertation was developed in the Graduate Program in Psychology (PPGPsi) of the Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados (UFGD) in the line of research of Psychosocial Processes. Suicide, with its high rates, is already considered a public health problem. Even with all the alerts, the topic remains taboo and remains silent. It is in this context that fictional literature stands out as a form of resistance, as it has always made suicide the subject of debate. Aiming to contribute to the field of studies about the subject, this research analyzed, through Critical Discourse Analysis, based mainly on the contributions of Norman Fairclough, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, based on the Cognitive Model of the suicidal acts of Wenzel, Brown and Beck, the speeches and representations about suicide in the books The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Demons, by Fiódor Mikhailovitch Dostoiévski, Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, and The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. It was found that the representations present in the analyzed works are very close to the current representations of suicide, which shows how slowly we have moved towards a deeper understanding on the theme of self-inflicted death. The analyzed works problematize these speeches and representations that limit the act, such as the idea that suicide would be an act of weakness, cowardice, foolishness or stupidity, and propose debates that, even today, have not been exhausted, demonstrating that we are still far from building spaces where suicide can be approached and debated with openness and empathy, as the representations are still extremely silent.