"If they burn our homes - I burn theirs, too": hegemonia e resistência no universo de Orisha do livro "Children of Blood and Bone" (2018), de Tomi Adeyemi

Abstract

The world of books offers a variety of feelings to the human being, with the reading it is possible to have new world visions, then the literary criticism is created as a catalyst agent to a new understanding and interpretation not only of literary works, but of an extensive universe of possibilities. Inside the universe of literary criticism it encompasses a range of theoretical perspectives, one of which is postcolonial studies, which highlight the impositions, conflicts, suffering and violence inflicted on societies that were dominated, invaded and colonised by imperialist countries, leaving scars filled with trauma and oppression that have been felt ever since and are still felt in everyday life. One of the weapons used by imperialists for this purpose is the ideology, which is used, in most cases, to alienate the original inhabitants, imposing a supremacist hegemony, often with a psychological influence and through physical force, to the dominated people have no choice but to accept it. However, one of the fruits of oppression is hope that gains strength in those willing to resist, fighting against the imposed colonial system. Given this scenario, literature emerges as a fruitful source for understanding coloniality, especially regarding the oppressive nuances of imperialism to combat it. In this sense, the book Children of Blood and Bone (2018) written by Tomi Adeyemi tells the story of Zélie and her people who fight against the monarchy of King Saran, the one who brought death and trauma to the people of Orisha and, above all, to the Majis, the magical beings of this literary universe. With this in mind, we aim to answer the question: How the action of hegemony and the forms of resistance are performed in the book Children of Blood and Bone (2018)? To answer this enquiry, we elaborated the general objective: Investigate how the hegemony and the resistance are performed in the book Children of Blood and Bone (2018) in the light of the post-colonial studies. With the purpose of achieve the general objective, the following specific objectives were postulated: Discuss the theory from the post-colonial studies focusing on the concepts of hegemony and resistance; Describe how the hegemony is showed with the monarchy domination against the Majis; Analyse how the Majis and the people of Orisha act with resistance against the colonizer domination. Furthermore, we followed with a bibliographic search, having a qualitative approach, with an exploratory nature and interpretativist analysis with the help of authors like Gayatri Spivak (2010), Edward Said (2007), Lois Tyson (2023), among others. The findings, obtained through the interpretive analysis paradigm, reveal that the actions of hegemony in the book were indicated by the discarding of a people and torture as an instrument of control, and the forms of resistance took shape in linguistic, cultural actions, and armed movements for the liberation of an entire people.