Feminitate transgresivă și travesti în Baltagul de M. Sadoveanu

Abstract

The paper focuses on the question of strong women and the concept of travesty in the novel Baltagul written by M. Sadoveanu. The text is centred on a strong female character, thus giving birth to a tradition, a literary topos that of the widow. Treated as a role, a cultural stereotype, Vitoria Lipan uses it to subvert an entire patriarchal culture. The relationship with the concept of travesty – itself a dimension of the carnavalesque – is put is analysed, starting from the following components: the suspension of the existing moral order, the temporary release under the power of the dominant truth, assuming liberties otherwise forbidden, the predilection for wearing a mask, the inversion of social roles, overturning binary oppositions that describe world hierarchies. The main character undertakes a journey that for herself means entering a new world, that of men, and into the language. Vitoria plays a role which she uses as a shield; under its protection she attacks the dominant moral order. Her behaviour is transgressive, her language aggressive; is stands for the liberties that she is ready to assume.