“Get to work! To work...”: o trabalho e as relações sociais em A viagem de Chihiro (2001) à luz dos estudos marxianos

Abstract

This research explores the social relationships between Yubaba and Chihiro in Spirited Away (2001), as the interaction between these characters in the animation highlights issues of social class, revealing the oppressions experienced by the proletariat. In this sense, the study aims to answer the following question: how does the relationship between Yubaba and Chihiro establish and highlight social class differences in the animation Spirited Away (2001)? To address this question, the research sets the following general objective: to investigate how the relationship between Yubaba and Chihiro establishes and highlights social class differences in Spirited Away (2001). In order to achieve the general objective, three specific objectives were defined: (I) to discuss the theoretical foundations of Marxist studies, with an emphasis on the concepts of social class, class division, and class struggle; (II) to analyze how the character Chihiro represents the working class and the ways she resists the oppressions of the bourgeoisie; (III) to understand how the character Yubaba personifies the bourgeoisie and how she oppresses and exploits the working class. To achieve these objectives, the study employed a qualitative research approach, based on a bibliographic modality, with an exploratory and interpretive nature, grounded in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (2010), Eagleton (2011), Marx (2010), among others. The research findings suggest that Chihiro experienced the reality of the working class, being exploited by Yubaba in the bathhouse where she worked incessantly until she returned to live with her parents.