Abstract

The present article analyzes, from a gender perspective, the spaces inhabited by women. For this reasons, this article focuses on the different female characters that appear in Capitães da Areia by Jorge Amado, who are represented with decision power over their lives as they have an economic capital. Dora, the only girl that integrates the band, stands out among the women represented in the novel. When Dora arrives to the group, children have already sought compensatory strategies to avoid being in a vulnerable position, but the cost of this forced growth is the lack of ideals greater than survival. Then Dora, who at a symbolic level reproduces some characteristics commonly associated with women, such as being the mother of some children and wife of Pedro Bala, is the one that makes possible the political formation of Capitães da Areia, because while she is with them she achieves to make them kids again and grow up. Then, her presence, rather than compensating for marginality, remedies it.