Configurando a mulher no escuro: a representação do ethos feminino no dark romance Sick Obsession

Abstract

This research addresses the construction of the feminine ethos in the emerging literary subgenre of dark romance, using as its object of analysis the work SICK OBSESSION, by the author MIHDARK, published on the Wattpad platform. The subgenre, characterized by intense and dark narratives, problematizes power relations, identity, and gender, inserting itself into a digital and collaborative literary landscape. The analyzed work narrates the story of Louise Turgueniev, betrothed to the Russian mobster Thomas Orlov, exploring themes such as submission, violence, and toxic love. The study is motivated both by the growing popularity of dark romance and by the pattern in the representations of female characters, as well as by its contribution to the academic study of literary genres in the digital environment. The overall objective of this study is to investigate the representation of the female ethos in the work SICK OBSESSION and the reception of this construction by readers on Wattpad. Specific objectives include: contextualizing the dark romance; analyzing gender representations and the discursive construction of the female ethos by the protagonist and readers; and identifying potential controversies in the discourses involved. The theoretical framework draws on the contributions of Fajardo (2023) on the dark romance; Simone de Beauvoir and Peter Stearns to contextualize historical representations of women. In the discursive analysis, the concepts of ethos, scenography, discursive formation, and polemic of Dominique Maingueneau guide the investigation. These concepts allow for the exploration of gender identity construction and the discursive clashes that permeate the narrative and reader interaction. This research adopts a qualitative, enunciative-discursive approach. The corpus consists of statements from the work SICK OBSESSION and reader comments on Wattpad. The analysis develops by taking two categories of statements: (a) those expressed by the protagonist about herself and (b) those of the readers about the constructed representation(s) of the character, thus examining the socio-historical-ideological conditions that shape the female ethos and its validation by the scenography, as well as possible controversies in the representations. The research indicated that the dark romance reflects an ambiguous space between the perpetuation of gender stereotypes and the contestation of cultural norms. In the Wattpad comments, an active dialogue between readers is observed, marked by a discursive tension that reflects broader gender issues in contemporary society.