Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. was not at all what I expected it to be. Given the position of the protagonist and certain details about her way of life, I read through more than a little of the novel assuming that there would be some kind of message relating to intersections between gender and class or social status: I thought that the former maid would play more of a role in some way, and I wondered if G.H.’s feelings about the maid would relate more directly to developments in her view of the cockroach. I certainly did not anticipate how a moment of surprise and disgust would evolve into a massive crisis and endless references to “oozing” substances.
Although the focus of the novel is on the “abject” and the protagonist’s “sacrifice” of depersonalization – as discussed in the lecture video – I found myself wondering again and again, somewhat contrarily, about the subject: I wanted to care about G.H.’s musings, but I also really wanted to know more about the woman herself and her role in the human world. We learn that G.H. is a woman and a sculptor; that she has enough money to live well and to employ a maid; that she was pregnant once, and that she chose to have an abortion; but who G.H. is in everyday life remains somewhat mysterious.
In addition to the mentions of “oozing,” the use of the words “salt” and “saltless” caught my attention more than once as I read this novel. I believe G.H. first makes reference to salt in relation to the cockroach, when she refers to her curiosity about tasting “the salt in the roach’s black eyes” (p. 74); and later, G.H. mentions salt in a more metaphorical way when she describes “tedium” as “saltless” (p. 147). Something that is “saltless” might be described as “bland” – not lively, but still in a kind of existence; therefore, I think the “saltless” experience that G.H. talks about could be compared to the loss of her sense of self.
Of the many aspects of this novel that I have yet to understand, one is simply the particular significance of the cockroach. Why would Lispector have chosen to represent the “abject” with a cockroach, rather than with a different animal or a person? Is there some other creature (one that would inhabit a closet or not) that might have been able to affect the protagonist in the same way?
Hi Maia!
I really liked your blog post:)
In my opinion, I think the reason why the details of G.H’s character was left somewhat ambiguous was because they didn’t really matter. The overarching theme of the novel was G.H’s transformation to become more like herself, therefore who she was outside of the narrative didn’t matter as much as who she became.
Hi Maia! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the abject in the book; I definitely agree that it’s really unconventional in how Lispector focuses so little on G.H. as a subject, and that threw me off a lot. To answer your question about the cockroach, I think one reason Lispector would choose it is because it represents a periphery or a kind of sideline, through which G.H. could experience that crisis. There seems to be some discussion of fundamental sameness when G.H. discusses the “I” as well at the end of one chapter, when she makes shocking claims about what “I” was, and I think that the cockroach’s size compared to her contributed to that choice as well.
I like to think that we got to understand and know G.H. as she is in her soul. Most of the time, we read and become invested in characters by their actions and words, which is then extrapolated into feelings and emotions – but with G.H. it was the opposite. We knew her soul before we knew her person.
– Jasmine C.
Hi Maia,
I honestly am terrified and disgusted of roaches and wondered the same and wondered if she was influenced by Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But I am assuming that she chose this despicable creature to show that one is able to transcend one’s emotions and ego and encompass all creation and be one with them. The author was certainly influenced by religious and mystical texts because her novel is full of religious references and going back to some sort of genesis or beginning. Reading this novel also reminded me of Yellow Wallpaper where the author uses a lot of dramatic irony.
” I found myself wondering again and again, somewhat contrarily, about the subject: I wanted to care about G.H.’s musings, but I also really wanted to know more about the woman herself and her role in the human world.”
That’s fair enough. We do get some glimpses, as you point out. But, as in some other novels we’ve read (Agostino comes to mind, too) we see our protagonist in a space/time of exception, when for better or worse they become other to themselves, and leave their day-to-day subjectivity behind. What will happen next, when they return to that subjectivity, we don’t exactly know.