The Passion according to G.H by Clarice Lispector was disturbing yet intriguing. The way the novel is written allows the reader to experience what the narrator is experiencing. I found this novel very interesting because there were no other characters besides the protagonist and also because its entirety consists of internal dialogue. This is what also makes the novel a little bit difficult to read for me. The protagonist, a previous sculptor who is well off, has an insane internal crisis when she is faced with a fat cockroach in her old maid’s room. The novel creates a relationship between the woman and the cockroach that is slowly being crushed by her. I believe Lispector used the death of the cockroach as foreshadowing for the abortion that the protagonist mentions later on. I feel like the cockroach represents feelings that she possesses for her unborn child. For instance, the narrator tastes the white matter inside the cockroach because it is her “anti-sin”. The mental state of the narrator can be explained by her unfortunate experiences such as her abortion. She mentions the foul taste of the cockroach’s insides “had a strange grace of life that I can only understand if I felt it again and can only explain by feeling it again”. Here, I feel like the narrator relates to the feeling of experiencing a taste of something that once was alive to her once alive unborn baby.
Furthermore, the protagonist appears to be holding onto a lot of guilt that was perhaps from her experiences with loss. The narrator speaks a lot about hell and she claims to be feeling like that from the inside. I am not sure if it is because of the religious context of the novel or it is her general guilt from her abortion. “It is not for us that the cow’s milk flows, but we drink it. The flower was not made for us to look at it or for us to smell its fragrance,” Similarly, the cockroach matter is not for human consumption but yet she does. The forbidden is what I believe is fueling the narrator’s anxieties. These activities she engages in (abortion and eating a dead cockroach) at that were at the time looked down upon in society.
My question: What do you think the protagonist’s internal crisis solved after she tasted the white matter of the cockroach?
“The forbidden is what I believe is fueling the narrator’s anxieties.”
This is an interesting observation. I wonder if you think that by the end she has got beyond these anxieties? If so, how?
I liked your contrast between the cockroach and the G.H.’s abortion. Something I overlooked on my first reading!
In my opinion, in real life, cockroaches are unacceptable existences living in dark corners. If there is a connection between cockroaches and abortion as you said, does it also mean that her inner guilt for abortion also arises when she crushes cockroaches. Her madness and inner struggles have a very strong role in setting off this emotion
“These activities she engages in (abortion and eating a dead cockroach) at that were at the time looked down upon in society.”
I had not thought about this connection fully, I do sorta forget when the book was set/written. Though I really do hope eating a dead cockroach is still looked down upon tbh.
Yeah definitely overlooked the connection between the abortion and the cockroach in my reading. Do you think that the act of eating the cockroach is her accepting the forbidden or an acceptance of her guilt?