Abstract
In the introduction to the novel Silêncio (1981) by the contemporary Portuguese writer Teolinda Gersão, a woman tries to maintain a conversation with a man through long and comprehensive words. Two of them directly indicate the water - the sea and the river.
In this author's debut work, the sea symbolizes infinity, freedom, a being that flows unstoppably, which opposes the limited world of man of geometric and solid forms. In the novel Landscape with a woman and the sea in the background (1982), the sea becomes a dark space of suffering and hopelessness, an element that brings death.
In an imaginary duel with him, the protagonist accepts the past and finds her identity. Water means not only movement and flow, but also the entity that is hidden under the surface, that gives space to the imagination.
This will be analyzed with the support of Gaston Bachelard's text Water and dreams: Essay on the imagination of matter (1942).