Abstract
This article presents an analysis of two female characters on Rodrigues’ and Assunção’s plays, Geni (Toda Nudez Será Castigada) and Mariazinha (Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito). It will look at the ways the characters’ expose their literal silences (half sentences, unspoken gestures, desire to speak) into obsessions with body parts and objects. Their sexuality and being are often seen as a type of “monstrous feminine” (to quote Barbara Creed’s term), not just by others, but even to themselves, which is often subtly revealed or disguised. I aim to forge a dialogue between Nelson Rodrigues’s character and the new dramaturgy writer to explore how both brought to the fore questions surrounding the position of women in this society and their particular “feminine” response to the dictatorship as a performative inquiry.