The madness of the Search : The poetics of deconstruction in Hilda Hilst's With my dog-eyes and The obscene Madame D

Sammanfattning: The obscene Madame D [A obscena Senhora D, 1982] and With my dog-eyes [Com os meus olhos de cão, 1986] are two short novels by the Brazilian writer Hilda Hilst (1930-2004) where the protagonists engage in a philosophical search for meaning that lead them to a state that is publicly interpreted as madness. In this analysis, they are read in light of the philosopher's Jacques Derrida theory of deconstruction. The aim is to show how their search is mediated by language, in a manner that thematizes its deconstructive character, but concretized in the materiality of their bodies, in the form of obscenity and animality. Working with the theme of madness as a mediator between language and the body's materiality, this analysis aims to show, moreover, how the strategy of deconstruction can be not only uttered, but also performed. In such a manner, it is possible to track in these novels a strategy of deconstruction on hierarchical binary oppositions such as madness/reason, human/animal, God/Evil, speech/writing, body/soul. And, being literary works that thematize a philosophical question, even the opposition philosophy/literature.