Tag Archives: poverty

The “Love” across Age and Race– Marguerite Duras

Posted on by under Introduction

“Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then (p. 3). “

This is the classic beginning of The Lover by Marguerite Duras, where the aged narrator when her looks are devastated, longs for a lover who expresses the love that transcends above time.

In this novel, the narrator looks back on her first love and offers her personal reflections on past regrets, sorrow, and joy. Unfolding in the first-person narrative, the novel explores the deep and hopeless love between a poor French teenage girl and a rich Chinese man in his mid-twenties.  For me what makes this story so influential is that it takes the life of the French colonists in Vietnam as the background, where there was a rise of nationalism among Vietnamese people and the idea of racial discriminatory views among French colonists. Under this concept,  this forbidden love between a French girl and a Chinese man highly reflects that love can transcend the prejudice of race, colour, and wealth. 

“I say that’s how I desire him, with his money, that when I first saw him he was already in his car, in his money. ( p. 40)” In the first part of the novel, the narrator emphasizes that she’s with this Chinese man for the money. Similarly, the rich Chinese man desires her young body and sex. At this point, this seems to be a fair trade. However, I feel great sympathy for the narrator. Her family looms over her like a shadow, the source of all her suffering comes from poverty and her mother. In such a family, her mother always sees her daughter in a patriarchal view and sees her as a commodity, caring about her daughter’s value in the marriage market. Her mother never provided the love a teenager needs, and so she is thirsting for the love she never had.  This accumulated desire for love was satisfied by the sex and love with this man, who cares for her. With the love of sexes, she was able to detach herself from the suffocating coldness that surrounded her. Reversively, this young girl seems to fulfill the desire for freedom of this rich young man under this nationalist context. However, despite such true love, their class and race differences hindered their possibility. 

As the narrator is looking back, without wondering how she faces this sorrow in her heart, she has already admitted from the bottom of her heart that he has loved, she has loved, and money, and interests and it has nothing to do with it. 

“ He told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he’d love her until death.” (p.129)

In the end, the Chinese man manages to express his love years later, and my question for everyone is, how do you interpret this ending? Do you view this as a tragedy full of regrets or a completion of their complex love story?

The Hour of the Starrrr – Clarice Lispector

Posted on by under Clarice Lispector

 The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector is the shortest novella I’ve read, and I thought it was unique, but also somewhat strange. In this story, there are two narrative storylines, the first line is the narration from Rodrigo S.M.’s point of view. Rodrigo S.M. is a male writer who seems to be bored with life and struggles internally. “I am absolutely tired of literature; only muteness keeps me company. If I still write it’s because I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death” (p.56). It seems that in this world he can’t find agency, but he can when he is writing literature. He feels like a God who can control the images and lives of his characters and is omniscient. 

The character he chooses to write, the second storyline, is a poor girl Macabea. Macabeia was born in a remote town and later came to Rio de Janeiro. She was portrayed as a sickly, ugly, woman who was so poor that she could only eat hot dogs. Despite her pitiful life, Macabea never seems to be very disappointed or bothered by her life.

 “That girl didn’t know she was what she was, just as a dog doesn’t know it’s a dog. So she didn’t feel unhappy. The only thing she wanted was to live.” 

She is naïve and mentally free from anxiety. She doesn’t go overboard with coveting and thinking about things that are out of her range, such as God, makeup, or even spaghetti. It seems that Clarice Lispector’s message is that is knowing or seeing more about life really better for you? Macabea knows less, she feels content, and that’s probably why she’s so happy. I wonder if the reason why Rodrigo S.M. depicts Macabea in this way is because he is tormented and can’t stop thinking about the soul and death, and that a character like Macabea is very much in contrast to him.

Later in the story, Macabea meets Olímpio de Jesus, a metal worker and she loves him so much. However, Olympic betrayed her, which added another layer of sorrow to her heartbroken life. The helpless Makabeya turns to tarot cards, which give her some courage to look forward to the future: she will marry a blonde foreigner. Ironically, she was struck by an oncoming car right after she steps out. In the moment nearing death, she has a hallucinatory “star moment” occurs, and all humility is sublimated into splendour. I wonder if Rodrigo S.M. thinks that death is a relief for Macabea and he is rescuing him, or if this death is what he desires but has no courage to do so?

 In this novella, Clarice Lispector chooses to have two storylines, and I believe that both characteristics of Rodrigo S.M. and Macabea have personal meaning for her. My question is, Rodrigo S.M. and Macabea, who is more of the epitome of Clarice Lispector; or do these three characters overlap with each other?

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