THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE IN THE WORK "THE WOMAN WHO WROTE THE BIBLE" BY MOACYR SCLIAR

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze how humor, the body, and materiality operate as critical mechanisms in the reconfiguration of the boundaries between the sacred and the profane in a contemporary narrative of biblical rewriting. The research adopted a qualitative approach, with an interpretive design and an analytical-descriptive character, grounded in procedures of critical reading and in the theoretical-deductive method. The corpus consisted of a comprehensive analysis of the work, considering structural, symbolic, and discursive elements that emerge from the female perspective of the protagonist. The methodological procedure involved identifying the central thematic nuclei, describing the narrative and humorous strategies, and evaluating the tensions produced by the presence of objects, bodies, and material elements that traverse the narrative. The results showed that humor functions as a device of symbolic displacement capable of exposing fissures in the patriarchal structures that sustain religious conventions, while female agency and materiality work to destabilize the supposed stability of categories of sacredness. The analysis also revealed that the narrative reinscribes and contests meanings traditionally associated with the sacred, demonstrating the constructed and historically negotiated nature of these categories. It is concluded that the articulation between humor, body, and materiality offers a productive pathway for understanding how contemporary literary rewritings can challenge religious hierarchies and broaden the debate on gender, religion, and literature in the Brazilian context.