Renata Barsanti

Renata Barsanti

Professor Randall Kenan

ENGL206

25 March 2014

Clarice Lispector Biography

Mystery surrounds most of Clarice Lispector’s life; people have debated everything from her birthplace to her religion and sexuality (Moser, p. 3). Lispector did little to dispel myths about her life, though, usually keeping to herself. The details that people do understand, though, show how her experiences made her writing powerful and innovative.

She was born in Ukraine in 1920 while her Jewish family was escaping the country to avoid persecution (Vieira). Her family fled to northeastern Brazil, the country with which she identified throughout her life. Her mother died when she was ten, and years later, her family moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she pursued law school (EGS). After she finished, she wrote Near to the Wild Heart, her first novel (Vieira). She married a diplomat in 1944 and travelled with him for fifteen years. She despised the loneliness that came with this lifestyle, but wrote two of her most influential works – The Passion According to G.H. and Family Ties (EGS).

In 1959, she and her husband separated and she moved back to Rio de Janeiro, where she spent the rest of her life writing (EGS). In 1966, she was badly injured, but she continued to write, publishing The Hour of the Star less than a year before she died in 1977. Her style and thought-provoking ideas, as well as her mysterious life, continue to inspire and fascinate readers today.

Story Summaries

“Love”

A woman named Anna is startled at the sight of a blind man at a tram stop, and she is launched into intense compassion for him. Having enclosed herself in a mundane life as a housewife, this is disconcerting. She gets off at the wrong stop and wanders into a garden, where her emotional experience is both wonderful and uncomfortable: “the garden was so beautiful that she feared hell” (Lispector 44). She hurries home, where her family is confused by her demeanor. At the end, she goes to bed, and her new feelings disappear.

“The Chicken”

This story focuses on the experience of an escaped chicken that was set to be eaten. The father of the family pursues and catches her. Shortly thereafter, the chicken lays an egg and the family rejoices, deciding that she must love them. The chicken becomes a family pet, but before long, the family kills and eats her anyway, and things go on as normal.

“Happy Birthday”

The family of an 89-year-old woman gathers to celebrate her birthday. Her children give speeches about the occasion’s joyousness, and she is filled with hatred for them. Aside from a few rash behaviors like spitting on the floor, she sits still and says nothing. Another son begins to speak, repeating, “‘How about next year!’” The family reflects uncomfortably on the idea of death, and they take their leave of each other, forcing themselves to believe that they will indeed reunite again for the next birthday.

Craft Analysis

In Family Ties, Clarice Lispector weaves the elements of her stories together to not only produce beautiful, interesting tales, but also to remind people of where they stand as human beings. Elements of her life are sprinkled throughout the stories, from the strong sense of loss she felt when her Mom died to the confines of her gender. Further, she wrote this while moving from country to country with her diplomat husband, while experiencing the loneliness that came with frequent switches to new countries, languages, and people. Having never been entirely sound in her decision to marry her husband in the first place, the stories also reflect her uneasiness with marriage and the stifling of true desires that comes with fulfilling gender roles. Lispector uses various aspects of her stories to show this and many other types of meaning, including themes of spirituality, hope, and death. Further, her storytelling connects to readers, showing them that their own lives intersect with those of her characters in uncanny ways.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of Lispector’s writing is her language. Her sentences are puzzles, and it often seems that multiple pieces can fit in one space. It feels like every word and sentence brims with significance and meaning that one can only grasp at. In “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman,” the narrator follows the story of a woman’s sudden, drunken awareness that her life is miserable. Grappling with her sudden discomfort is both difficult and rewarding for readers, who take in scenes such as, “…everything in the restaurant seemed so remote, the one thing distant from the other, as if the one might never be able to converse with the other. Each existing for itself, and God existing there for everyone” (Lispector 33). At first, this section goes perfectly with her feelings. In noticing how much she despises being a housewife, she feels disconnected from those around her. Lispector makes matters more complicated, though, by adding elements of spirituality that hint at both the closeness and the separation of people who should be united by God. Perhaps the sentence suggests that the woman is not alone, though it could also be interpreted as suggesting that she is.

Lispector’s language is not usually embellished. Though it is hard to make precise conclusions about it because her works were originally written in Portuguese, the English translation indicates that her sentences are generally not fancy, and they alternate in length in a way that allows her stories to flow. In the same story, she writes, “The sun, trapped in the blinds, shimmered on the wall like the strings of a guitar” (Lispector 28). Though none of these words are particularly large, they create a simple, beautiful image that helps show the happiness felt at the beginning of the story. Further, her word choice is able to establish the tone of her stories. When the grandmother figure spits on the ground in “Happy Birthday,” the narrator comments, “Everyone exchanged polite glances, smiling blindly and abstractedly as if a dog had peed in the room” (Lispector 82). Again, her sentence is not overstated, but it gets the point across powerfully. Further, it shows how uncomfortable the family members feel around their aging mother, setting an uneasy tone for the rest of the piece.

Lispector’s characters also set her work apart from that of other writers, as the changes they experience are almost entirely emotional. Information about them is revealed gradually, and at the end, they often revert back to the state in which they rested at the beginning. In “Love,” Anna gets a taste of compassion, and although it is unsettling to her, there is a sense of hope that she will continue to feel it. Yet, the last line of the story reads: “Before getting to bed, as if she were stuffing a candle, she blew out that day’s tiny flame” (Lispector 43). Though the change was what showed us who she was, it disappeared at the end of the book. This characterization style imbues her work with meaning. It facilitates the larger significance of her pieces, often relating to social norms and status. In “The Chicken” the story follows a chicken that is characterized as altogether unaware, who lays an egg and is suddenly loved, and who is eventually eaten anyway. Her development of the chicken shows that, in fact, her plight is likely a reference to the oppression of women, who are appreciated for their reproductive capabilities but for little else.

Also meaningful, Lispector’s sense of place is one of her strongest elements. The physical descriptions of her character’s surroundings are powerful as they not only create beautiful, often unsettling images, but also because they connect to what the character is feeling. In “Love,” the garden is described:

On the trees, the fruits were black and sweet as honey. On the ground there lay dry fruit stones full of circumvolutions like small rotted cerebrums. The bench was stained with purple sap. With gentle persistence the waters murmured. On the tree trunk the luxurious feelers of parasites fastened themselves. The rawness of the world was peaceful. The murder was deep. And death was not what one had imagined.

Though this description is rich in its liveliness, it is disconcerting. “Cerebrums” and “deep murder” are generally not used to describe gardens, but Lispector skillfully meshes them together. The strange description represents Anna’s feelings perfectly. Seeing the blind man gives her a taste of the life she steeled herself against. Although compassion is usually considered positive, it makes her feel uneasy. After so many years of caring only for her family and duties as a wife, the feeling is unwelcome, which can be seen in this unconventional description of a garden.

Only one of the stories in the collection uses the first person. The rest of the time, Lispector uses the third person, which is an effective choice for the emotional epiphanies she seeks to show. The view is often limited; readers only see the thoughts of one character. Other times, though, she uses omniscience, which adds lots of meaning to her writing. In “Happy Birthday,” Lispector comments on the norm of family, showing how ridiculous and forced connections between family members can be. She uses the omniscient point of view to give us a sense of all the characters, which helps readers understand her point. She gives glimpses of the thoughts and attitudes of the younger family members, using the grandmother’s point of view to bring the different ideas together. Of the grandmother, she says, “…as her chain was choking her, she was mother to all of them, and, powerless in her chair, she heartily despised them…All those children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, who were nothing but the flesh of her flesh, she suddenly thought, as if she had spat” (Lispector 79-80). The other characters’ thoughts make the discomfort in the room feel tangible as are forced to interact with their family, so that the grandmother’s thoughts can drive home her message.

Dialogue is used sparingly in these stories, and when it appears, it serves many functions. In “Love,” brief dialogue is shown between Anna and her child as well as Anna and her husband. This dialogue not only shows how much her emotional experience has changed her, but lets readers see the people that have made her feel so emotionally suffocated in the first place. When she speaks to her son, she tells him that “‘Life is horrible,’” the change in her startling him so much that he cries. Further, when she becomes overly alarmed at a loud noise, the dialogue shows how dismissive her husband is of her true feelings. In “Happy Birthday,” the dialogue comes from adults giving speeches about their mother. Though their speeches seem to represent genuine sentiments, they also show how uncomfortable the characters are with their extended family and with the frailty of the old woman. Jose’s repetition of the idea that they will be back in the same place next year serves to launch the characters into unpleasant thoughts about death, adding the dimension of human impermanence to the uncomfortable family dynamic.

Lispector also uses summation to explain the intense emotional experiences of her characters. In “Love,” summation is used at various points in the story to emphasize the newness of Anna’s feelings and to show remind readers of how it happened. She refers to the blind man who started her fit of compassion at multiple points of the story, and she references the garden even after she leaves it, all in summation. Although readers remember, she makes sure neither leaves her story, as even towards the end, she writes, “She no longer knew if she was on the side of the blind man or of the thick plants…The botanical garden, tranquil and high, had been a revelation” (Lispector 45). Though readers certainly know this to be true long before this line, she adds it to emphasize what has happened.

Not only do the elements of Lispector’s stories create meaning and help readers understand the positions and feelings of people, they also work together in strange ways to create the sense of mystery that is characteristic of her writing. Disconcertingly unique images combine with the summation of feelings; terse language portrays beautiful transitions in characters. It seems that one could read her stories over and over and still find a new glimmer of meaning each time, which seems to be a large part of the spirit of her work. She delves deep into the concept of societal roles and positions, showing us that they are hard to escape. When they are surpassed, though, despite all uneasiness, the experience is incredible. Though over forty years have passed since her death, her stories are still widely read and pondered today – her offbeat, soul-searching works will be relevant for a long time.

Bibliography

“Clarice Lispector – Biography.” egs.edu. The European Graduate School. 1997. Web. 23 March 2014. <http://www.egs.edu/library/clarice-lispector/biography/>.

Lispector, Clarice. Family Ties. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1960. Print.

Moser, Benjamin. Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Vieira, Nelson H.. "Clarice Lispector." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on March 24, 2014) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lispector-clarice>.