Abstract
The look at the feminine has been a constant theme in literary studies. The objective of this studies is to analyze a narrative of the rubber boom based on how the woman’s body is portrayed throughout this text. Furthermore, it aims to verify the symbolic load that this body assumes within the narrative texture. For this, we anchor our reading in the process of constructing meaning that is elaborated in the story, wherein the narrator describes the character in a symbolic way and, faced with the inability to deal with such an unexpected referent, makes use of metonymy as a more efficient means of saying a specific reality of the entrails of the Amazon. The methodological basis, therefore, is metonymy understood in the context of cognitive linguistics. The “Maibi” narrative, located in the Brazilian Amazon during the second rubber boom, exposes an indigenous woman’s body constructed in a metonymic structure in which she gradually changes from woman to unprecedented spectacle. Maibi, in this way, is a silent symbol of the rubber tree and the Amazon, represented by the signs of blood, milk, and profit.
Keywords:
metonymy; narrative; rubber tree; sacrifice