Symptoms of Conflict: Facets of Destructiveness in "A Confissão da Leoa", By Mia Couto

The representation of women in Mia Couto's 2012 novel, "A Confissão da Leoa", has been extensively examined in literary studies. However, the novel also addresses issues such as psychosomatization in the contexts of war, armed conflict, religion, racism, and slavery. Thus, the present work seeks to investigate how this diverse set of conflicts expressed in the novel facilitates a discussion of both Mozambique and other societies affected by capitalism worldwide. In other words, it aims to explore how modernization and colonization have psychically and socially impacted communities, as represented through the lens of Couto's narrative. To this end, it's relevant to consider Frantz Fanon's observations on North African individuals in France, who presented symptoms without detectable lesions. French doctors dismissed these patients as undisciplined and insincere, diagnosing a supposed "North African syndrome". This raises the question of how "A Confissão da Leoa" denounces the recurrence of such symptomatologies that lack biologically detectable roots in individuals from colonized and subordinate countries. Therefore, this study aims to demonstrate, through an analysis of the novel's multiple psychosocial elements, how the plot and conclusion reflect what Erich Fromm identifies as a consequence of unfulfilled human potential: necrophilia, or the desire for death in individuals. This desire manifests as destructiveness not only in the broader human experience but also within the novel, particularly in the protagonist. The analysis highlights the social and emotional relations behind the symptoms and destructive deviations, ultimately exploring the socio-historical meaning of both psychosomatization and the desire for destruction present in the characters.