The girls who fled the convent

configurations of lesbianism in "As Tias", by Natalia Borges Polesso

Abstract

Focused on reading the short story "As tias", by Natália Borges Polesso (2022), this article examines the issue of female homoeroticism experienced in old age, investigating how the characters in the narrative build their (homo)affective relationships and represent themselves in the text. The study is developed through qualitative research, with a bibliographical bias, based on some authors, such as Barbosa and Dunder (2021), Fagundes (2020), Almeida (2017), Rich (2010), Sedgwick (2007), among others. It begins with a brief presentation of the theme of female homosexuality in the history of our literature, followed by the insertion of Polesso's production in this history, especially his collection Amora, of which the analyzed short story is part. Finally, a close examination of the selected narrative is carried out, in which the same-sex journey of two elderly women is unfolded from the perspective of their niece. In this reading, we will seek to highlight a series of particularities in Polesso's literary elaboration of the theme, specificities that are revealed in the choice of two elderly protagonists, in the option for a happy ending and in the characters' successful “coming out” of the closet. These issues, as we will show, although they contrast with many of the representations of female homosexuality in our literary history, deserve to be linked to a series of demands and changes identified in contemporary literature.