Life, art and Comic Books: the case of Maurício de Sousas work from a bakhtinian perspective

Abstract

This research aims to dialogically analyze comic books by Maurício de Sousa that have been circulating in Brazilian society since the decade of 1970, which feature the characters from Monica's Gang. The main goal of this research is to investigate in which way the cartoonist's artistic production throughout four decades answers to social and educational values that circulate in the sphere of child development - the pedagogical sphere. This work also aims to answer other questions, such as: Is it possible to identify a moment when the relation between life-art acquires a more direct nature in his work? How does the genre of discourse comic books relate to Child Literature, especially when thinking about its usage in the classroom? Additionally, from a Bakhtinian perspective, in which way can comic books be considered a discourse genre? It is a qualitative and interpretative research, based on the studies of the Circle of Bakhtin, in conjunction with studies by other researchers about the previous. In terms of methodology, proposals of dialogical discourse analysis by Brazilian researchers have been adopted.