Clarice Lispector is one of the most acclaimed Brazilian authors and has authored several books and short stories. She was a Jewish Ukrainian whose parents emigrated to Brazil after WWII. She lost her mother at a young age and grew up poor. A lot of Lispector’s works are known for their lack of plots and are in the form of inner monologues of the protagonist. Her ‘The Hour of the Star’, published posthumously in 1977 is one such novel that tells the story of Macabea, a poor typist who leads an insignificant life and then dies. In the novel, the narrator takes it upon himself to tell the story of the poor girl who did not even know she was unhappy. Although the novel is not autobiographical there are many similarities between Lispector and Macabea. Lispector also speaks through the narrator in the novel. It could be said the Rodrigo, the narrator and Macabea the protagonist are representative of Lispector’s life and work.
Macabea is a fictional representation of the early life of Lispector while Rodrigo acts as the voice of the writer she eventually becomes. Barbara Mujica in her review of the novel calls it a ‘meditation on writing’. Through Rodrigo Mujica says that Lispector brings into question the authorial supremacy. She says, “Rodrigo is not the omnipotent, invisible creator, but a thinker who doubts, vacillates, and questions his own work. In The Hour of the Star and other novels, Lispector throws into doubt the ability of fiction to capture the truth (Mujica, 61).” He does not immediately launch into an account of Macabea’s story although he takes it upon himself to tell her story and thousands like her. He is not sure of himself or his talent that it takes him almost two chapters before he can start on Macabea. Rodrigo describes this procrastination as, "warming up before making a start, rubbing [his] hands together to summon up [his] courage (Lispector Ch.1.14)." Although Macabea shares a lot of similarities to her own life, Lispector through Rodrigo the narrator reveals the doubts and difficulties that she has as an author to write about her. Having lived both lives-that of a poor immigrant who moved into the big city and the writer who eventually made some money, Lispector brings both the elements of her life in the novel. She is at the same time Macabea and Rodrigo.
Over the years, Lispector's women protagonists changed. Although never submissive, they rebelled against their lives and had their own voice. Her initial women characters were in conflict with men, but later after her feminist years, they became more assertive. Their assertiveness was not vocal but came out in the way they lived their lives, unperturbed by others and with as much dignity they could muster. Moser when writing about Lispector’s works over the years says that, “ her sympathy for silent and silenced women haunts these stories ( Moser, 2015). Lispector’s sympathy for the silent women is also seen in through Rodrigo. Rodrigo’s attitude towards Macabea changes over the course of his narration. When he begins the novel she is nothing more than an object of his writing. She is one of the thousands of the poor women who live in the city slums and he takes an objective view of her. He says, "It is true that I, too, feel no pity for my main character, the girl from the North-east: I want my story to be cold and impartial ( Lispector Ch 1.9)." But as he continues to talk about her, his views towards her changes. He is no longer the impartial writer but starts taking pity on her and gets frustrated because she does not seem to know she is unhappy and neither does she make any demands on her life oron others. Towards the end however, the feeling is one of love. He calls her ‘My Maca’ for ‘she belongs to no one’ (Lispector Ch. 4). Macabea does not show any outward signs of rebelling. She does not try to live like the others. She is happy through her ignorance of the world and lives life the way she chooses to. It is through this silent acceptance of her life and conditions that she becomes assertive.
Another instance where there is an autobiographical element is in the name of the protagonist Macabea. Lispector was Jewish and her religion and faith played an important part in her writings. The persecution of her people stayed with her and it reflects on the life of Macabea herself. Macabea, the name is a derivative from Maccabees, a Jewish rebel army who fought against the Hellenistic Jews and brought back the old ways of Jewish life. Macabea however is an ironic contrast to the Maccabees as she does not even know how to defend herself but in her own way resists the injustices, oppressions and conflicts of life. Macabea is not vocal about her resistance but is passive and resists without her knowledge by refusing to change for others.
The voice and life of Lispector thus is revealed in patches through the characters of Rodrigo and Macabea. Through Rodrigo, it is the writer in Lispector that talks about the oppressed and the poor in the society. Through Macabea the reader could get glimpses of the early life of Lispector- growing up in a rural village and trying to make it in a big city. Lispector was an unusual writer. She wrote in a fashion that was uncommon in her days and her writings were mostly raw and powerful. She was a natural writer whose style was not influenced by others and who wrote for decades. A little bit of that can be seen in Macabea. She too is a small town girl who moves to the big city, even if it is in the sidelines. She however remains different from the rest, uncommon just as Lispector was. Both of them do not fall into any traditional conventions or descriptions of how a woman or a writer should be.
Works Cited
Lispector, Clarice. The Hour of the Star. New York: New Directions. 1992.
Moser, Benjamin. “The True Glamour of Clarice Lispector”. The New Yorker. 10 July, 2015. Web. 15 Mar 2016.
Mujica, Barbara. Review: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. Americas. 44.1 (1992), 61.
