Vera, a Grande Mãe: arquétipos na construção da protagonista de Aos Nossos Filhos

Abstract

This paper presents a film analysis of the construction of the character Vera in the movie Aos nossos filhos (2019). Our goal is to discover how archetypes operate in narrative and to explain their functionality in Vera’s relationships with other movies’ characters. Erich Neumann’s studies on the Great Mother archetype and Christopher Vogler’s theory of archetypes in narrative cinema were the main theoretical references used in the analysis. Therefore, the framing used to investigate archetypes in this work was based on the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung. We appropriated it to a specific narratological study about film characters. Each archetypical function identified in the film was described and analyzed, highlighting those that set Vera and Sérgio, a protagonist’s doppelgänger. In conclusion, we found that the Great Mother’s archetype ambivalence made Vera a complex character who reflected, at the same time, the properties of the Good Mother and the Terrible Mother. Furthermore, we found that the Great Mother archetype is associated with other archetypes in Vera's characterization, promoting the character's transformation and leading to the resolution of the key dramatic conflicts in the narrative.