Reading Notes W14: Lispector, Part B

Lispector (808-814)

  • Clarice Lispector is best known as a writer of intense, tightly structured short stories that portray the external world through  character's innermost thoughts and feelings and that emphasize sensuous perception to attain intuitive knowledge beyond words (808)
  • "The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman" (1960) is a disturbing tale
  • it begins with the protagonist in bed at home, possibly already drunk, and goes on to show her flying into alcoholic rages and bouts of self-pity (809)
  • the story reveals deeper possibilities in this woman
  • the reasons for her misery and repressed rage, the choices that she has made while seeking security and protection, and the social conditions that foster such pitiable circumstances
  • her identity appears fragmented , her self-image either in shards or swollen and unreachable
  • as she congratulates herself repeatedly on being "protected like everyone who had attained a position in life," and viciously criticizes a more stylish woman she sees in the restaurant 
  • it becomes clearer that she has arrived at her position and escaped poverty by exploiting her body to marry a man she neither loves nor respects
  • "Oh what a succulent room! Here she was, fanning herself in Brazil. The sun, trapped in the blinds, shimmered on the wall like the strings of a guitar" (810) good imagery 
  • "She remained in bed the whole daylong listening to the silence of the house without the scurrying of the kids, without her husband who would have his meals in the city today. Her anger was tenuous and ardent. She only got up to go to the bathroom, from which she returned haughty and offended." (810)
  • "Her sensibility irritated her without causing her pain, like a broken fingernail (812) simile use
  • "Certain things were good because they were almost nauseating. . . the noise like that of an elevator in her blood, while her husband lay snoring at her side. . . her chubby little children sleeping in the other room, the little villains... What is wrong with me? It was unhappiness." (814)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2 Analysis: Philosophical Satire Literary Analysis

1. Literary Elements - Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz's poem, "Philosophical Satire," sets a strong tone in her writing and her tone will be the literary device I will discuss for this analysis. Sor Juana's tone had such a liberated and inspiring tonality that it almost seemed like she was trying to get her point across and make women feel outraged with the way men inferior women. In my understanding, it is as if Sor Juana wanted to make it alarming that the role assigned to women are difficult and showed her own perspective and view on society. She questions and exclaims the foolishness that goes on and I, for one, truly appreciate this poem and the tone she set because she wants to let women know that it is not okay to be inferior upon men and that something should be done about it.  2. Themes -   The theme in "Philosophical Satire" is symbolized by women needing to be better and stronger and not to be knocked down by a man's judgment call. The underlyin...
Read more

Week 14 Analysis: Lispector

Close Reading on Clarice Lispector's, "The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman" (808-814) The thing that intrigues me about this reading is the use of simile's and imagery. Lispector creates these vivid images in your head when speaking because she describes the situation so clear. For example, when the husband and the kids leave the woman home alone, she says, ""Oh what a succulent room! Here she was, fanning herself in Brazil. The sun, trapped in the blinds, shimmered on the wall like the strings of a guitar" (810). I like this quote because at least for me, I can perfectly image this scenery in my head and it give me a snip of what this story is like in reality. This story, "The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman," reveals deeper possibilities in this woman. She is unhappy and full of rage. The reasons for her misery all reflect on the choices that she has made while seeking security and protection and the social conditions that foster such poor circumstan...
Read more

Reading Notes W17: Devi, Part B

Mahasweta Devi (1147-1165) Mahasweta Devi is the most important fiction and prose weiter in the Bangali language since India's decolonization (1147) she is also the premier social activist in Asia of the past fifty years dedicated to the cause of aboriginal peoples, having worked tirelessly for the little-known Lodhas and Shabars on West Bengal her unflinching novels, stories, plays, and essays about these and other disenfranchised people provided the literary foundations for what would later be called "subaltern studies" Devi was born in 1926 into a Hindu brahmana family in Dhaka, then in East Bengal in British India, and now the capital of Bangladesh her proper name is is Mahasweta, as devi is simply an honorific term attached to many Indian female names she was educated in schools in East Bengal and at Viswa Bharati, the experimental institution established by Rabomdranath Tagore her graduate studies in English literature at Calcutta University, in the mid-194...
Read more