An analysis of the elements of cohesion and the construction of the identities of black woman in the short story "Mais iluminada que as outras" by Jarid Arraes

Abstract

The short story Mais iluminada que as outras (Brighter than the Others), by Jarid Arraes (2019), features a Black female protagonist and offers critical reflections on structural racism and the forms of domination inherited from Brazil’s colonial past. Through expressive linguistic strategies, the author constructs a character marked by gendered and racial oppression, whose symbolic configuration transforms her into an emblem of resistance and denunciation. This article aims to analyze the short story based on cohesion mechanisms, considering an ethno-racial perspective. The specific objectives are: (1) To identify the bound and free grammatical referential forms in the short story Mais iluminada que as outras; (2) To analyze how these referential forms contribute to the discursive construction of the protagonist’s identity; and (3) To investigate the representation of Black women in the short story. The theoretical framework is grounded in Text Linguistics, drawing on the works of Koch (2010) and Cavalcante (2012), as well as the contributions of Gonzalez (2011), Kilomba (2019), and Ribeiro (2005), who address the social construction of racial and gender identity. This is a qualitative and descriptive study, based on an interpretative analysis of language. The findings reveal that the protagonist symbolizes the historical erasure of Black women while simultaneously transforming her body and voice into tools of resistance and affirmation. The recurrence and sequencing of specific linguistic forms reinforce the visibility and the urgency of listening to these voices. Arraes’s short story thus emerges as a literary text of powerful social critique and identity construction.