Loucura e depressão em “A escrava” e Ponciá Vicêncio: aspectos psicopatológicos, percursos e diálogos pós-coloniais

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to analyze the psychopathological aspects of madness and depression in the novels “A Escrava” and Ponciá Vicêncio, through the lens of postcolonial discourse theory. In both narratives, it was observed that colonial and neocolonial contexts act as catalysts for neurotic and psychotic reactions—manifested through madness and depression—in the protagonists Joana and Ponciá. These disorders are understood as subjective responses to the oppressive logics of coloniality, which inscribe historical, epistemic, and symbolic trauma onto Black bodies. From a phenomenological and decolonial perspective, this qualitative research traced a historical panorama from the rise of Modernity and the height of colonialism to the contemporary unfolding of the coloniality of power (Quijano, 1992), focusing on its psychic impacts on racialized and subalternized subjects. The approach was inter-epistemic, establishing a dialogue between postcolonial theorists—such as Frantz Fanon (2020), Gayatri Spivak (2010), Stuart Hall (2023), and Aimé Césaire (2020)—and Latin American decolonial thinkers, including Aníbal Quijano (1992), Enrique Dussel (1993), María Lugones (2014), Walter Mignolo (2010), and Lélia Gonzalez (2020). The analysis proposed a critical reading of the psychic zone of the colonized subject, emphasizing the mental suffering produced by epistemic violence and the structures of racial, gender, and class domination inherited from colonialism. As a result, it was found that both Joana and Ponciá embody forms of psychological suffering that cannot be dissociated from the historical marks of coloniality. Madness and depression, in these cases, are not merely clinical categories but emerge as expressions of subjective resistance and forms of denouncing the structural violence inflicted on Black bodies. The research also highlighted the power of literature as a critical space for understanding the psychic effects of colonial oppression and as a tool for giving visibility to silenced voices. Given the scarcity of studies that articulate psychopathology and literature from this perspective, this work contributes to strengthening interdisciplinary dialogues between mental health, postcolonial criticism, and Afro-Brazilian literary production.