CLARICE LISPECTOR and MACABEIA

(... This is a long essay from University... Will try to condense it later)

Language is the most significant symbolic system of the human species. First by force of nature, but also through cultural organization and expected gender roles, men and women are compelled to assume specific identities in their social relationships. While femininity is the natural product of the female biological state, maleness frequently appears to depend upon an individual's assertiveness that occurs independently of the biological characteristics of the person. Thus it is common to hear the words "Be a man!" as if manhood was unrelated to gender. The tendency to categorize maleness as strength and femininity as docility is encountered in all levels of Brazilian society. In the last few decades, feminist voices have challenged traditional male dominance in the social organization of modern society, claiming for women power participation equal to that of men.

The Hour of the Star

This article seeks to analyze the female condition through the language of a young woman in Clarice Lispector's novel A Hora da Estrela or Hour of the Star. One of the last works published before her death, the book examines the multiple layers of oppression inflicted upon Macabéa, the main character in the novel. The book is not merely a denunciation of social problems and inequalities, but also a personal reflection of the writer's struggle to comprehend the complex forces that make up poverty. The story itself is a collection of everyday events, as banal and unassuming as the main character herself. Individually the acts are inconsequential, but taken together they paint an epic tragedy of a life crushed by circumstances of which she was aware, but unable to react because of the precarious circumstances of her lowly existence.

Gender relations

Lispector's writings show a constant preoccupation with the interconnections between literature, ethics, language and gender. By using a male narrator to tell the story, thus separating her voice from that of the principal characters, she creates a vehicle to address sexism as well as poverty and oppression with a greater sense of apparent impartiality. In Hora da Estrela Lispector creates a narrator unlike any in her works: a person who could do what she as a woman could not - write about literature and justice for a woman from a detached male point-of-view (Marting, 1993).

Macabeia, the Anti-Feminist

The main character in the novel is in many ways anti-feminist. In a time when women are creating a new type of power process, Macabéa is practically devoid of all traits pertaining to either power or sex. While eroticism and sexuality are often associated with female discourse even in modern feminist writing, Hora da Estrela is equally lacking in both. This emptiness of typical female characteristics, associated to her verbal inability, results in a character that is almost sexless and subhuman. This lack of human and female qualities is a stark contrast to much of modern feminist literature, where women are portrayed as strong individuals, ever challenging traditional social structures.

Narrator, Mr S&M.

The story is told by a male narrator named Rodrigo S. M.. It focuses on the final days in the life of a poor, uneducated young woman from the impoverished rural Northeast of Brazil who comes to Rio de Janeiro. She has no skills and must take a job earning less than minimum wage. She is hired as a typist, but cannot master even the elementary skills needed to operate a typewriter. She cannot afford a room on her meager salary, so she takes a bed in a room shared with three other girls, who maintain their distance. At work she is both ignored and mistreated by her boss, Raimundo. Her only friend is her pretty co-worker, Glória. The plot follows Macabéa through a series of misfortunes that relentlessly oppress her. She finds a boyfriend, Olímpico, but the relationship is only a mechanism for him to assert his dominance. The most constant element in the narrative is the continual verbal abuse directed at Macabéa, primarily from Olímpico, but also by all other characters. Because of her limited verbal skills, Macabéa frequently resorts to a dull repetition of ludicrous quotations heard on the radio to maintain a dialogue. Olímpico is in many ways the opposite of Macabéa. He shares the same lowly background, and is a thief and murderer; but he is ambitious and has plans to be rich. He tries to talk "difficult" and dreams of going into politics. While Macabéa is simple, unrefined innocence, Olímpico is smart malignancy. Soon Glória steals Olímpico from Macabéa. Devastated, yet strangely optimist, Macabéa goes to a fortune-teller and is told that she will marry a rich foreigner. Overjoyed at the good news, Macabéa steps out of the soothsayer's house and is tragically killed in a hit-and-run acci-dent by a foreigner driving a Mercedes-Benz.

Macabeia's Name

One of the most striking elements in the story is the uncommon name of the main character: Macabéa. Some critics, based upon Lispector's Jewishness, have attempted to link the character's name to the Macabéan warriors of ancient history and so to proclaim her a glorious symbol of resistance to an oppressor. However, this interpretation does not fit the circumstances of the story, insomuch as the young girl Macabéa does not effectively fit the role of heroic resistance warrior. There are a multitude of interpretations surrounding the meaning of her name: Maca, her nickname, is almost graphically identical in Portuguese to "maçã", meaning apple, a fruit associated with pleasure and temptations; maca is also the Portuguese work for stretcher, conjuring up images helplessness and illness; and her name rhymes with "plebéia", identifying her with the plebes of the lower class. In any case, it is a strange, ironic name - a terrible weight to bear in the more sophisticated Southern region of Brazil.

Personal Identity and Abuse

The main issue to be addressed in this paper is to determine if language pertaining to gender identity is a factor in the misery to which Macabéa is subjected. The fact that Macabéa is oppressed by a multitude of circumstances is beyond doubt. The question here is to determine if language - not just any language - but language focussing on gender roles is a factor in the unfortunate condition of this woman's life. By analyzing dialogues from the book and applying theoretical elements studied in the classroom, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between Macabéa and Olímpico, and determine the influence of language on gender roles. This paper will approach this question from three perspectives: an analysis of the language between the two main characters in Hora da Estrela; the use of a male identity by the author in telling the story; and a commentary on the gender ingredient in the media sources influencing Macabéa in her dialogues.

The Poor and Miserable

The theme of the story is Macabéa's world, but it is also a narrative about narrative. Words are important and the power of words is explored in many different forms. Rodrigo, the narrator, wonders how to write about the poor and miserable without enriching them by attributing to them words they would not or cannot use. The question is how to capture Macabéa's reality through the reality of the writer? Macabéa finds many words beyond her understanding. She cannot even correctly type a letter for her boss, because of her limited vocabulary. Such concepts as "per capita income" and "culture" are not in her vocabulary and have no meaning. She may even like the look and sound of a word, such as "efeméride" (ephemeris, almanac) but has no idea of its meaning. During her date with Olímpico the dialogue is apparent nonsense and mostly irrelevant.

1. Him: Pois é! So
2. Her: Pois é o que? So what? 3. Him: Eu só disse pois é! I only said so 4. Her: Mas "pois é" o quê? But so what? 5. Him: Melhor mudar de conversa porque você não me entende. Better to change the subject because you don't understand me. 6. Her: Entender o quê? Understand what? 7. Him: Santa Virgem, Macabéa, vamos mu-dar de assunto e já! Holy Virgin, Macabéa, lets change subject, right now! 8. Her: Falar então de quê? Speak then of what? 9. Him: Por exemplo, de você. For example, of you. 10. Her: Eu? Me? 11. Him: Por que esse espanto? Você não é gente? Gente fala de gente. Why are you afraid? Are you not a person? People talk about people. 12. Her: Desculpe mas não acho que sou mui-to gente. Excuse me, but I don't think I am much of a person. 13. Him: Mas todo mundo é gente, meu Deus! But everybody is people, my God! 14. Her: É que não me habituei. It is that I am not used to it. 15. Him: Não se habituou com que? You are not used to what? 16. Her: Alí, não sei explicar. Ah, I don't know how to explain it. 17. Him: E então? So then? 18. Her: Então o que? Then what? 19. Him: Olhe, eu vou embora porque você é impossível! Look, I am leaving because you are impossible! 20. Her: É que só sei ser impossível, não sei mais nada. Que é que eu faço para conseguir ser possivel? It is because I only know how to be impossible, I don't know anything else. What is that I must do to be possible? 21. Him: Pare de falar porque você só diz besteira! Diga o que é do teu agrado. Stop speaking because you only say nonsense! Say whatever you wish. 22. Her: Acho que não sei dizer. I think I don't know how to say it. 23. Him: Não sabe o que é? You don't know what? 24. Her: Hein? Humm? 25. Him: Olhe, até estou suspirando de agonia. Vamos não falar em nada, está bem? Look, I am even sighing from agony. We won't talk about anything, ok? 26. Her Sim, está bem, como você quiser. Yes, it is ok, whatever you want. 27. Him: É, você não tem solução. Quanto a mim, de tanto me chamarem, eu vi-rei eu. No sertão da Paraíba não há quem não saiba quem é Olímpico. E um dia o mundo todo vai saber de mim. Yeah, there is no hope for you. As for me, they called me so much, I became me. In the backlands of Paraiba there is nobody that doesn't know who Olímpico is. And one day everybody will know about me.

(Lispector, 58-59)

Verbal relatioships

This simple dialogue is more than an awkward exchange of half constructed ideas. It is an attempt of two individuals to connect and at the same time, it is a contest of two personalities to define their relationship to each other. Olímpico starts the conversation with an indirect statement: (Line 1) So! At this time both participants are on equal footing, having the same social and educational background. There is no intimate relationship, but there is a mutual desire to establish a verbal relationship. Both participants have anxieties. Macabéa is afraid of offending Olímpico, after all it was her first date. She does not feel secure about how to express herself. A person's perception of his/her own personality is built upon ideas and feelings about him/herself, but in the case of Macabéa these are practically non-existent. It is impossible to build personality upon emptiness, as evidenced by Macabéa herself, who declares that she does not consider herself to be "much of a person" (line 12). Psychologists believe that self-concepts have a major impact on behavior, often in a negative way. Macabéa's sense of inferiority is doubtless accentuated by Olímpico's proclaimed (but doubtless unfounded) optimism about his own future (line27).

Sex Roles in Society

Problems arise in this relationship because the two characters have divergent expectations as to the roles of each during the conversation. After trying an indirect approach to open a conversation with disastrous results, both take a direct approach to conversation with an equally calamitous outcome, because it involves both responsibility for a spoken phrase and for getting a proper corresponding answer. When both participants have equal standing, indirectness protects both. However, when one party possesses relative greater power, the situation changes. In this situation, Olímpico, from a position of power, has less to fear through directness: he does not worry about being rude or being found in error. Nevertheless, even for Olímpico, fear exists, because his power is not absolute and he gets angry and loses his control: (Line 11) - Why are you afraid? Later, not obtaining a satisfactory deferential response, Olímpico exclaims: (line 19) - Look, I am leaving because you are impossible! Macabéa has resisted his dominance, but the primary mechanism of her defense was not an active response, but rather a passive one that infuriated her boyfriend. In a sense, her own ignorance and innocence protected her.

Power and Culture

Women have typically been reported as talking less, interrupting less, and having a difficult time maintaining a topic in mixed-sex interactions because of their less powerful position within our culture. Macabéa displays all of these characteristics. Her speech is simplistic and her vocabulary is limited. She does not know how to manipulate communicative strategies. In spite of her many limitations, Macabéa recognizes her own insignificance, and wants to overcome it: (Line 20). It is because I only know how to be impossible. I don't know anything else. What is that I must do to be possible? In her own words, she wants to be a real person. The links between gender and status, on one hand, and linguistic practices on the other, are not natural but culturally constructed. Macabéa, being powerless, uses a noncommittal assent response "humm" (line 24) to reply to Olimpíco. According to Hirschman (1974, 249) females use the "humm" and other assent terms such as "humm," "yeah," and "yes" more often than males. This practice is defined by Schegloff (1972, 380) as a "demonstration of continued, coordinated hearership". Feminists have often pointed that these differences are evident in our society: women are expected to be agreeable and "ladylike." Their conversations are more likely to include elements of "baby-talk" than those of men. They emphasize sympathy and cooperation, and use more tag questions and adjectives than men. This subservience is demonstrated by Macabéa in the dialogue: (Line 26) … whatever you want. In the dialogue, Olímpico and Macabéa try to identify common interests and satisfy one another's needs. This turns out to be impossible and Olímpico loses his temper, and with it his politeness. In the conversation he declares: (Line 25) - Look, I am even sighing from agony. We won't talk about anything, ok? (Line 26) Yes, it is ok, whatever you want. In these examples there was a certain danger of a breakdown in communication. Politeness is a strategy intended to preserve the appearance of harmony and cohesion in interpersonal relations, by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation in human interchange (Lackoff, 1973). Olímpico abandons politeness and turns to boasting to secure an advantage. He argues his case persuasively, trying to get Macabéa's attention, and project himself as a powerful and competent man, like one that she had never known until now. (Line 27) Yeah, there is no hope for you. As for me, they called me so much that I became me. In the backlands of Paraíba there is nobody that doesn't know who Olímpico is. And one day everybody will know about me.

Born Victim, suffering as destiny

Instead of identifying sexuality as the decisive element of the individual's behavior, Lispector places more emphasis on social position. Olímpio is not exploiting and dominant because he is a male, but because Macabéa is an easy target. Macabéa is not exploited solely because she is woman, but because she is a born victim.

28. - Olhe, Macabéa... Look, Macabéa... 29. - Olhe o quê? Look at what? 30. - Não, meu Deus, não é "olhe" de ver, é "olhe" como quando se quer que uma pessoa escute! está me escutando? No, my God, It is not " look" to see, it is "look" when you want a person to listen! Are you listening to me? 31. - Tudinho, tudinho! Everything! Everything! 32. - Tudinho o quê, meu Deus, pois se eu ain-da não falei! Pois olhe vou lhe pagar um cafe-zinho no botequim. Quer? Everything what. my God, since I haven't even speaken! So I will buy you a coffee at the café. Do you want one? 33. - Pode ser pingado com leite? Can it be coffee with milk? 34. - Pode, é o mesmo preço, se for mais, o resto você paga. It can, if it's the same price, if it is more, the rest you pay. (Lispector, 66)

Dialogue and communication

Much of the dialogue is silly and unfruitful. Conversational politeness is tried and discarded. At the same time, Olímpico offers Macabéa a drink but restricts it to a specific price, even though the difference would have been insignificant. Olímpico's motives are obscure. He does not seek a sexual relationship or material advantage. Macabéa's capacity for companionship or dialogue is limited. So what is it that he seeks? The only possible explanation is that he seeks to dominate and control another person. This must be achieved by language. However, Olímpico is only marginally more articulate than Macabéa, and any advantage he achieves over her is due not to his own strength, but to the combination of disadvantages than are found in Macabéa: inferior social status, low economic position, female gender and her inability to use language.

Male Domination and Identity

According to Sattel "the starting point for understanding masculinity lies, not in its contrast with femininity, but in asymmetric dominance and prestige which accrues to males in this society" (1983, 119). Much of Olímpico's dialogue and posturing was intended to demonstrate male power. Although Olímpico often had no real knowledge of the answers to the questions he was asked, he insisted on maintaining the appearance of being in control of the situation. Macabéa's inability to communicate with other people makes her incapable of reacting to others. Olímpico, on the other hand, did not lack self-confidence. He believed in himself. He planned to be a representative in Congress and he at times acted as if he already were a politician in Macabéa's presence. As Foucault "power is action that modifies action". This effect may not be immediate or direct, but it is real in that it causes others to act or not refrain from acting. Men feel a need to project the appearance of knowledge, while women, in contrast, avoid the role of expert in conversation.

In the narrative there are three tex-tual interactions pertaining to the author and her identity: the implicit connection be-tween Lispector and her male narrator, Rodrigo S. M., the narrator's relationship to Macabéa, and the inter-action between Rodrigo S. M. and the reader. All the relationships are unstable, moving continually between identification and rejection, sympathy and repulsion. In Writing a Woman's Profession: Women's Relation to the Scientific Voice Fleischman comments on the problems a woman writer faces in her work. "How can women create stories of woman's lives if they only have the male language to do it?". Beyond the problem of language itself, there is the problem of the author's identity being imputed, purposely or not, into the story. Objectivity requires that writing be neutral, where the author's identity is independent of the subject of his or her writing. This neutrality, while a requirement for academic and scientific composition, is for the most part unachievable in fiction, where the author's identity and/or experiences may be an integral part of the story.

Women and Gender Roles

In the preface to A Hora da Estrela, the narrator, a certain Rodrigo S.M., (actually Lispector), assumes a masculine voice. He begins the story in the middle of events that unfold, positioning himself as a casual, but interested observer. The use of "I" by the narrator permeates the story, interrupting events and dominating the narrative. This symmetrical system, moving back and forth in time, and the use of direct and indirect discourse enriches the novel. This type of writing extends an invitation to the potential reader "to participate in the interweaving and construction of the ongoing conversation". The blurring of gender roles continues as the imaginary male narrator creates a fictional female as his subject. The question of why the author feels a need to use a male figure to recount the story is worth asking. Rodrigo claims that as a man he is detached from the sentimental and subjective influences to which women are susceptible. His maleness allows him an objectivity and detachment impossible for a female writer, who, he feels, would weep at the sorrowful events he describes.

35. …e até o que escrevo um outro escreveria. Um outro escritor, sim, mas teria que ser homem porque escritora mulher pode lacrimejar piegas. …and even what I write another would write. Another writer, yes, but it would have to be man because a woman writer would shed overly emotional tears.
(Lispector, 18)

36. "Porque também sou um homem de hosanas e um dia, quem sabe, cantarei loas que não as dificuldades da nordestina." Because I am also a man of "Hallelujahs" one day, who knows, I will sing praises and not the hardships of the native of northeastern Brazil."
(Lispector, 25)

Emotional response

According to Tompkins, women in our culture are "not simply encouraged but required to be the bearers of emotion, which men are culturally conditioned to repress, an epistemology which excludes emotions from the process of attaining knowledge radically undercuts women's epistemic authority…". Any adherence to accepted standards is therefore an recognition of male principles, which then undermines female claims to possess culturally legitimate sources of knowledge that are the equal to those of men. Rodrigo declares that a woman would be emotionally incapable of telling a story such as this and not crying. A man, in other hand, in similar circumstances would, according to the narrator, be able to sing "Hallelujahs" and use the tragic circumstances to convey an effective message to the reader. Since the author is really a female, this argument is meaningless. The use of a male narrator isolates the main character from the author herself, making Macabéa the character stand on her own merits, rather than merely as a extension of the author. Lispector doubtless wanted Macabéa to be viewed in human terms, rather than in female terms.

Machismo and Latin Culture

In this section we notice the strong machismo projected by the male character. The use of contradictory gender roles (women creates man to talk about women) is evidence of the importance of sexual roles in the book. Gotlib attempts to define the characters in Hora da Estrela in gender terms. The author (Lispector) is identified as feminine, and the narrator, Rodrigo, as masculine, while Macabéa is pronounced neutral. This is a final insult to Macabéa, attempting to make her sexless, depriving her even of the one thing she has, her female sexuality. However the blandness of Macabéa seems to affect both the author and the narrator, so that they become less than feminine and masculine in the story. The roles of man and woman as sexual beings is reserved for Olímpico and Glória in the story, but even they are portrayed in mild terms, and the sexuality is more a matter of power and position than a physical relationship. Another possible explanation for the use of a male narrator is that Lispector assumes a man's personality in order to more comfortably talk about sexuality. This was typical of the times and culture. For a fact, in most of her other works in which she assumed her own female identity, she was more reserved on this subject. At the beginning of the 1970s however, female equality and even lesbian issues had begun to appear in Brazilian literature. Homosexuality as a topic is briefly touched upon in the final episode of Macabéa's life. She visits an old fortune-teller who perceives that the girl has problems in her relationships with men. The soothsayer reminisces of her days as a prostitute and gives Macabéa some advice:

37. "… Eu tinha um homem de quem eu gostava de verdade… Quando ele me dava uma surra eu via que ele gostava de mim, eu gostava de apanhar. … depois que ele desapareceu, eu, para não sofrer, me divertia amando mulher. O carinho de mulher é muito bom mesmo, eu até aconselho porque você é delicada demais para suportar a brutalidade dos homens e se você conseguir uma mulher vai ver como é gostoso, entre mulheres é muito mais fino. Você já teve chance de ter uma mulher?

(Macabéa) - Não senhora.

"… I had a man who I really liked… When he beat me up I saw that he liked me, I liked to be beat. … after he disappeared, in order not to suffer, I had my fun loving women . A woman's affection is really very good, and I even recommend it to you because you are too delicate to endure the brutality of men and if you get a woman you will see how it is pleasant, between women it is so much nicer. Have you already had a chance to have a woman?
(Macabéa) - No, mam (Lispector, 89)

Lesbian sexuality

While this in no way approaches the radical lesbian found in many contemporary works, that takes the position that lesbianism frees women from the constraints and oppressions of patriarchy, making it possible for lesbians to serve as role models for all women. In the case of the fortune-teller, the lesbian option was more of a case of substitution by default rather than a conscious choice from an assortment of alternative lifestyles. Once again, Macabéa's sexuality is not an issue, her homosexual feelings are even less consequential than her heterosexual relationships.

Influence of the Media

In Brazil, as in all societies, women are often viewed as sex-objects. The media uses the female body as an erotic attraction to appeal to the male audience. In the same manner, these same images tend to convince other women that their main goal in life is to be beautiful. Macabéa seems to not fit into either of the two main stereotypes of women portrayed in the media: she certainly is not the rich, elegant type, nor is she the poor, domestic, caring for children and exploited. She is less than woman. The message of the media is that plain and ugly women, such as Macabéa, have no chance to succeed in life.

Radio and TV

The radio had a frequent and persuasive effect on Macabéa's language. It provided a great deal of information, much of it beyond her comprehension. She tried to use this in her everyday conversation with Olímpico. Her primary distraction was listening to Clock Radio, a well-known station in Rio de Janeiro. It monotonously announces the time of day every 60 seconds or so, inserting an unending series of "tics" and "tocs" and one line bits of useless information between the times. It is often used as a clock by those too poor even to own one, but who may have a radio to listen to music or soccer games. Macabéa on a number of occasions attempts to use information from Clock Radio in her conversation with Olímpico.

38. --Você sabia que na Rádio Relógio disseram que um homem escreveu um livro chamado "Alice no País da Maravilhas" e que era também um matemático? Falaram também em "élgebra". O que é que quer dizer "élgebra"? Did you know that on Clock Radio they said a man wrote a book called "Alice in Wonderland" and that he was also a mathematician? They also spoke of "elgebra". What does "elgebra" mean? 39. - Saber disso é coisa de fresco, de homem que vira mulher. Desculpe a palavra de eu ter dito fresco porque isso é palavrão para moça direita. To know about these is for fairies people, men that turn into women. Excuse me for using the word fairy because it is a dirty word for good girls. 40. - Nessa rádio eles dizem essa coisa de cultura e palavras difíceis, por exemplo: o que quer dizer "eletrônico"? On the radio they talk about culture and difficult words, for example: what does "electronic" mean? 41. Silêncio Silence 42. - Eu sei mas não quero dizer. I know but I don't want to say. 43. - Eu gosto tanto de ouvir os pingos de minutos do tempo assim: tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac. A Rádio Relógio diz que dá a hora certa, cultura e anúncios. Que quer dizer cultura? I like so much to hear the minutes of time ticking like this: tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac. Clock Radio says it gives the right time, culture and advertisements. What is culture? 44. - Cultura é cultura, continuou ele emburrado. Você também vive me encostando na parede. Culture is culture, he continued dumbly. You always push me against a wall.
(Lispector, 61)

In this dialogue Macabéa, departing from her usual position of deference, decides to take a risk and initiates a dialogue with Olímpico using information she has heard on the radio. However, even the elementary "culture" on Clock Radio is beyond both of them. He does not acknowledge this, however, and feels insecure and offended by not being able to answer her questions. He takes refuge in his masculine superiority and interrupts the conversation. In this case, it manifests itself in depression and anxiety. Macabéa's feeling of worthlessness are further enhanced by his attempt to exercise power over her, blaming her for not saying anything, even when he also was quiet.

45. Mas puxa vida! Você não abre o bico e nem tem assunto! But Dammit! You don't speak up and neither do you have a topic! Então aflita ela lhe disse: Much afflicted she told him: 46. Olhe, o Imperador Carlos Magno era cha-mado na terra dele de Carolus! E você sabia que a mosca voa tão depressa que se voasse em linha reta ela ia passar pelo mundo todo em 28 dias? Look, Emperor Charlamagne was called Carolus in his land! And did you know that a fly flies so quickly that if it flew in straight line it would go around the whole world in 28 days? 47. Isso é mentira! That is lie! - Não é não, juro pela minha alma pura que aprendi isso na Rádio Relógio! No, It is not, I swear for my pure soul that I learned that on Clock Radio! 48. Pois não acredito. But I don't believe it. 49. Quero cair morta neste instante se estou mentindo. Quero que meu pai e minha mãe fi-quem no inferno, se estou lhe enganando. I want to drop dead in this instant if I am lying. I want my father and my mother to be in hell if I am deceiving you. 50. Vai ver que cai mesmo morta. Escuta aqui: você está fingindo que é idiota ou é idio-ta mesmo? Maybe you will fall dead anyway. Listen here Are you pretending you are an idiot or are you really an idiot? 51. Não sei bem o que sou, me acho um pou-co... de que? ... Quer dizer não sei bem quem eu sou. I don't know very well what that I am, I am a little.. of? .. What I want to say is I don't know who I am. 52. Mas você sabe que se chama Macabéa, pe-lo menos isso? But you do know that you call yourself Macabéa, at least this? - É verdade. Mas não sei o que esta den-tro do meu nome. Só sei que eu nunca fui im-portante... It is true. But I don't know what is in my name. I only know that I never was important..
(Lispector, 68)

Language as an Expression of reality

The difficulty of finding words to express ideas and situations is a theme that appears frequently in Lispector's writings. In simple terms the writer declares that language is inadequate to describe reality. This concept is explored even more by Lispector in another novel, A Paixão Segundo G. H, in which the writer struggles with an unworthy instrument - words - to come to terms with a fearsome object - a cockroach. Macabéa also struggles with words and with her understanding of life. She senses that words are a part of a person's identity but feels that her inability to use them is indicative of her lack of human status. So words are part of a person's reality, but cannot really adequately be relied upon to describe it. This leads necessarily to the idea that there is an inher-ent contradiction between the real world and the word, which the word is incapable of overcoming. This perspective does not take into account that the world exists independently of the individual, and a person's thoughts and actions are culturally construed. In the final analysis, Macabéa is a product of her culture as much as we are of ours.

Ignorance and frustration

In the dialogue Macabéa manifests reduced metasemantic awareness. She has limited ability to recognize the more complex codes of the language system or to manipulate them. She is deficient in both, the word itself and the more complex activities of linking linguistic elements together. She admits her ignorance and asks for an explanation on the meaning of a word. Olímpico also is ignorant, but cannot admit it without losing his position of superiority. He ends the conversation abruptly, in anger, as much frustrated by her strange attempts at dialogue as by his own inability to answer or dominate the conversation.

Media Promotion

Nobody is immune to the effects of media promotion. Even Macabéa is caught up in the in commercialism that has definite gender connotations. "Advertising is more influential in society than simply having the effect of persuading consumers to buy products. It provides models of behavior and conveys particular attitudes towards living" (Unesco, 1983). Macabéa collected advertisements in her free time, placing them into an album. One of them was very special, showing a woman's creamy skin in colors. She even had dreams about it. It was so appetizing that she tells herself that if she had money she would buy and eat it. Radio and magazines exert an important influence on her life, filling a void left by lack of self-identity. They were an invitation to a beautiful and successful life; they promised romance and love. Without a doubt, the imagery promoted by the media was a factor in promoting an inferiority complex among the female audience not blessed with good looks. In her own bed at night Macabéa would dream of one day being a star like Marilyn Monroe. One day she would have her own "Hour of the Star."

Gender and Sexual appeals

Goffman in his book, Gender Advertisement, shows that independently of what is being promoted in the pictures there is usually a subtle subtext of male dominance. This is equally true for most vehicles of popular culture, including radio, magazines, TV, and cinema. The importance of media portrayals in establishing gender roles is undisputed. Magazine articles and television shows commonly define blonde women as a synonymous with beauty. This was even more prevalent in the seventies, when this novel was written. Gloria, who steals Macabéa's boyfriend, not only has a lighter complexion, but with the help of a bottle is also a blonde.

CONCLUSION

Macabéa died the same way she lived in life: senseless, insignificant and stupidly. The narrator recites a series of images that compares the dying girl in the gutter to the weeds growing around her, then to a dead horse and last of all proclaims she has become air - that is, nothing. The narrator sees in Macabéa's death a metaphor for the humble, impoverished people of the Northeast, "... that stubborn dwarf race that one day will demand the right perhaps to scream" (Lispector, p. 96). Macabéa's despair and unhappy life is more than a product of material deprivation. It is symbolic of the dubious moral and psychic forces at work in the representation of oppression. These forces are apparently indifferent to the fact that Macabéa is a woman. After all, had the main character been Jose rather than Macabéa, the drama would have been the same, or would it? The narrator states that:

"… If she were to die, she would truly go from virgin to woman. No, it was not death because I don't want it for the girl: only a road accident that is not even a disaster. Her effort to live appeared to be a thing that, even though she had never experimented it, virgin that se was, she at least by intuition, now understood that a woman is born a woman upon the first lamentation. The destiny of a woman is to be a woman.

(Lispector, 101)
So Macabéa achieves one final victory. In death she becomes that which she could not be in life: a woman. The narrator dies with Macabéa, because it is part of the human condition. Macabéa dies and with her the narrator - the sole figure that depends on the young girl in the story - ceases to exist. Strangely enough Lispector herself died with a few months. Macabéa's story was her last major work. Macabéa is characterized in two contradictory but related forms: a language of the grotesque and another language that portrays her in lyrical terms. Nar-rator and characters seem equally drawn to defining Macabéa in disparaging metaphoric and descriptive epithets. Refer-ences to eating (and the contrasting states of hunger and nausea), elimination, and bleeding are dispersed throughout the text, and emphasize Macabéa's corporeality and pathetic awkwardness. Blood and vomit mark the hour of her death, which the narrator had mistakenly predicted would bring her a moment of glory. The promise of stardom - of height and exaltation - is reversed, materializing instead in a star-shaped pool of blood on the pavement.

A datilografa vivia uma espécie de atormentado nimbo, entre céu e inferno Nunca pensara en "eu sou eu" Acho que julgava não ter direito, ela era um acaso. Um feto jogado na lata de lixo embrulhado em um jornal.

The typist (Macabéa) lived in a type of stunned limbo, between heaven and hell. She had never thought of "I am me". I think she believed that she did not have the right to do so, that she was an accident. A fetus thrown in the garbage wrapped up in a newspaper. (Lispector, 45)

VIctory and Defeat

Whatever the faults of Lispector, and whatever the shortcomings of Macabéa as a woman, she achieves a kind of victory in that her body is always hers. Macabéa dies a virgin, her body is never given or taken. She is a Joan of Arc that never goes to battle, but dies silently. This victory can in some ways be understood to transcend even the achievements of the feminists. The use of the female body and of female sexuality as the primary object for self-identification, even by feminist writers, may in some form seem to be a capitulation to the woman-as-object school of traditional male conviction.

A Hora da Estrela defies all effort to categorize it as a statement against any single form of oppression. By the same measure, the work cannot be view as an effort by the author to establish Macabéa as a symbol of any specific class of oppressed humanity. Her situation is so complex it cuts across barriers of age, race, gender, geographic area, social class, education and economic situation. She is oppressed for all of them but not purposely for any of them. It is indiscriminate, senseless, impersonal discrimination, but nevertheless brutal and unrelenting. Macabéa's situation is so hopeless that she is even unable to establish a female identity, a goal considered to be a constant in current Brazilian women's writing. Although Macabéa is the center of the story, she is more of a pathetic symbol of hopeless humanity than of a mere oppressed woman. Being a woman in a male dominated society did contribute to her problems, but her own inherent lack of a forceful female personality compounded this problem. A tragedy greater than her female condition was her inability to express herself. This was the deciding factor in the tragedy that was Macabéa's life.

Lispector's Work

The primary importance of Lispector's works is that they are a first definite step in women's search for a female voice in society. She is concerned not only with her "Brazilianess", but also with society itself and primarily the female element in humanity. The literature of writers such as Lispector has forced researchers to go beyond accepted everyday linguistic phenomena and explore the intrinsic relationships between thought and society. They understand that language and gender is "deeply political, seeking not only to illuminate, but also to change relations between women, men and language". Lispector's works have stimulated younger female writers to think in different ways about the impact of gender and language upon society and the consequences of these on the common people - specially women - that struggle for a place in the sun.

Page Last Updated: july 30, 1997