The role of the good wife in Niketche:

uma história de poligamia, by Paulina Chiziane

Abstract

This article aims to analyze questions and reflections about the image of the good wife in the novel Niketche: uma história de poligamia, by Paulina Chiziane. Among the questions analyzed, we will highlight the way in which the protagonist character looks at her own body, as well as the way this look is “molded” by social and cultural practices of the place where she lives. Through a comparative study with the short story “Branca de Neve”, by Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, we will seek to interpret the situation of the Mozambican black woman, as a wife, within a polygamous relationship. The following works were used as a theoretical reference: A invenção das mulheres, by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (2021); A dominação masculina, by Pierre Bourdieu (2015); O segundo sexo, by Simone de Beauvoir (2016), and A psicanálise dos contos de fadas, by Bruno Bettelheim (2001).
Keywords: female body; polygamy; subalternization.