{"id":38,"date":"2024-03-04T16:52:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T23:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/?p=38"},"modified":"2024-03-10T14:26:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T21:26:24","slug":"clarice-lispector-the-hour-of-the-star-brazil-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/2024\/03\/04\/clarice-lispector-the-hour-of-the-star-brazil-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarice Lispector, \u201cThe Hour of the Star\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clarice Lispector\u2019s novel, \u201cThe Hour of the Star,\u201d tells the story of a poor and uneducated \u201cnortheastern girl\u201d in a raw and haunting style of writing. In the beginning, I was quite confused about what the story was about as there wasn\u2019t really a plotline, it was more just following the thoughts and emotions of the narrator as he told the story from his perspective. I was also confused about the narrator\u2019s relationship to the protagonist, it seems like she\u2019s just a figment of his imagination or a story that he conjured up himself, but he conveyed the literature in such detail. In addition, I thought it interesting how Lispector decided to write a story through the narration of a man telling a story of a young woman. Although I first found the writing to be intriguing because of the abstract descriptions and thought-provoking sentences, soon it grew tiresome and I found myself wishing for the narrator to be more simple and direct. However, the story picks back up with the introduction of Olimpico, a northeastern boy with a huge ego and superiority complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

The protagonist\u2019s, or \u201cnortheastern girl,\u201d name wasn\u2019t revealed until later in the book, which was interesting because the narrator said that he didn\u2019t \u201ceven know the girl\u2019s name (pg. 10)\u201d when he was introducing the character. The girl\u2019s name was Macabea, she was a young, impoverished, and very naive girl who lived in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. What perplexes me the most about this character is her oblivion to the misery of her situation and how she drifts around like a shell of a person because \u201cshe was used to forgetting about herself (pg. 41)\u201d. Her ignorance and innocence are emphasized through several events and exchanges in the novel, like with Olimpico, the doctor, and the fortune teller. She was incapable of picking up the distaste and mistreatment Olimpico directed toward her, it was almost like she struggled to comprehend complex thoughts and emotions; \u201cThinking was so hard, she didn\u2019t know know how you were supposed to think (pg. 45)\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Macabea\u2019s naivety was puzzling but also saddening. She was an orphan living in poverty which limited her access to education. I think that this significantly contributes to her present personality as she never had the chance to develop critical thinking skills or attain basic geographic, cultural, and social knowledge. Her story demonstrates how systemic poverty will continue to keep people economically disadvantaged and socially marginalized without the proper education and supporting environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Discussion Question:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

How does Macab\u00e9a’s ignorance and innocence shape her identity throughout the novel? What do you think contributed to her naivety? Was it her upbringing, society, gender norms, or others? How do you think her personality isolated her from the world around her?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarice Lispector\u2019s novel, \u201cThe Hour of the Star,\u201d tells the story of a poor and uneducated \u201cnortheastern girl\u201d in a raw and haunting style of writing. In the beginning, I was quite confused about what the story was about as there wasn\u2019t really a plotline, it was more just following the thoughts and emotions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100339,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,36,35,14,37,16,25],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-clarice-lispector","tag-death","tag-education","tag-identity","tag-life","tag-poverty","tag-womanhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100339"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fionazng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}