Clarice Lispector: The Poetics of Transgression Author(s): Rita Terezinha Schmidt Source: Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 26, No.

2 (Winter, 1989), pp. 103-115 Published by: University of Wisconsin Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3513580 Accessed: 23/07/2009 16:29
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Lispector: Transgression
Rita Terezinha Schmidt

Clarice

The

Poetics

of

do coragao Perto Clarice had her first novel, Lispector seventeen in 1944, when she was only years published selvagem, extenshe wrote From that old. time up to her death in 1977, and intensely as if the meaning of her own life depended on sively above that rested, the reality she crafted on the page, a reality to access on the assumption that gives that it is language all, dimenand exciting and shapes our consciousness of the strange act of the very sions of being alive in the world. For her, the to outreach had been always to a compulsion linked writing the only limits of the human enterprise of constructing meaning, difference means by which the human subject can define his/her of all the indeterminacy the ultimate of death, against negation The urgency the words of the male author at meaning. underlining the de vida of Um sopro last novel, Lispector's beginning connecthe seminal in 1979), (published posthumously highlights tion between writing and living: 6 um grito de ave de rapina. no rosto morto. O beijo a fosse salvar para a minha pr6pria vida. que a morte faz. de vida Viver e

Isto nao e um lamento, Irisada e intranqiila. Eu escrevo como se Provavelmente alguem. uma especie de loucura

It is not a surprise, the fate of so many women writers given in our patriarchal the woman who offered that this society, of unsuspected adventures challenge through her female characters' stitched of language whose deployment consciousness, multi-layered the most unusual lived in associations words and things, between absolute social the longto Olga Borelli, dysfunction. According time friend who helped her organize three of her texts, nobody to Clarice was said about her and very little paid much attention of In the until (Borelli, 8-9). 1970s, fact, critiques works were limited of articles to a handful Lispector's ranging

Luso-Brazilian Review ? 1989 by the University

XXVI, 2 0024-7413/89/103 Board of Regents of the of Wisconsin System

$1.50

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from serious which placed her at the center of the appraisals, Brazilian to biased reductionist which avant-garde, readings defined the scope of her achievement in terms of categories such as of her as a direct seen ("feminine lyricism") projection feminine personality. As early as 1944, Ant6nio one of the most acclaimed CAndido, critics in the of literature considered school, sociology as an instance of renewal in Brazilian Lispector's prose emergence fiction.1 For CAndido, Lispector's is highlighted performance by the tension that probes psychological engendered by a rhythm and deeper into and an the inner lives of her characters, deeper innovative that new twists so that seeks new images, the style common picture of daily into life is transfigured a new world. Alvaro Lins tries to assess text by of Lispector's the strangeness her narrative her while imanalyzing technique, considering in terms of being the first Brazilian writer to craft the portance new fictional mode set up by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. His marred On is, however, critique by its pseudo-objectivity. that Lispector's first novel is structurally unfinished, insisting Lins labels the novel as "feminine" that means) because (whatever what stands out is the author's estranha "sua personality, natureza humana." the both structuralism and existentialism, of 1970s, During which had gathered enormous academic in the Brazilian prestige the critical new insights into for world, provided apparatus novels. Costa of the one most Lispector's Lima, outspoken structuralists bases his on the assumptions nation-wide, reading of the modern introverted His critique on the novel. fails of theoretical and a value based grounds inconsistency judgement on a very definition of what is concrete and what is personal abstract in fiction. He comes to discuss the validity of a that reduces to the free play of subjectivity composition reality and of intellectual Nunes was the scholar Benedito divagations. who wrote the first of Lispector's works. critique book-length His study the questions investigates posed by the narrative/existential that take shape in the growing consciousorder, questions ness of the narrator and underline the drama of the narrative In his conclusions, Nunes regards texts as process. Lispector's of a tradition based on the Kierkegardian notion of partaking which characterizes the pre-reflexive vis-aindividual intuition, vis the context of his/her dramatic existence. The impact of feminist in the 1980s is still thought regarded with in the academic in graduate suspicion world, particularly courses in literature where feminist criticism is either unheard or treated with contempt as another and out-moded of, "imported minor there have some attempts been to inStill, theory." female characters and raise vestigate Lispector's ideological in her treatment of domestic the implications space. Considering influence of the traditional available long-lived which, critiques needless to say, fail to address as such pertinent questions and ideology, these representation gender and textuality, attempts can be considered as only modest and isolated studies in published

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with no impact on current academic newspaper supplements, literary As an index a new trend in to scholarship.2 Lispector's these theoretical studies lack a common and coherent criticism, framework which would and articulation them the unity give for them to be regarded as revisionist criticism. necessary In the United Canada and other countries, States, European has been interest considered with Lispector by ever-increasing scholars and literary on the critics who ground their critiques that they do not have to either the or privilege assumption ignore woman in order to make sense of the writer. the two, the Instead, woman and the artist, of aesthetic conin the zone converge and to cern--writing--where representation meaning way give and otherness. I this In accord with challenge perspective, consider the to a major a modest contribution present study aims and cultural that, boundaries, project crossing geographical to give Lispector's texts new readings which are long overdue. I start from the a that is not criticism assumption just theoretical to a text that to grasp its ultimate seeks approach that liberates new meaning but a practical interpretative activity and produces I new readings. From this meanings viewpoint, a reading of Lispector's dos Uma aprendizagem ou o livro propose as a metaphor I mean of gestation. (1969) prazeres By gestation, the production of a meaning and of a discourse that constructs feminine in symbolic ruptures specificity representation, through that the order of language the male term and which inscribes is, the of that I will how this term. privileging investigate encoded in the female of process, development Lispector's decenters the framework of traditional character, opposigender tions on which the text is built and articulates the "jouissance," a representational discursive in is defined space where femininity terms of fullness and completion, thus challenging the cultural norm. Uma aprendizagem the development of a young presents journey woman named Lori, an elementary school whose isolation teacher, from people and things makes her feel and defeated as if helpless she were wandering in an existential been conennui. Having ditioned in the past to assume object-positions by the social of her kin (a father who places on the young daughter the practice of motherhood) and by her lover's Lori demand, responsibility the fragmentation that pushes her into non-being dimly perceives and makes her unfit to live in the world. of With the help a philosophy who becomes her mentor and lover, Ulisses, professor Lori undertakes an apprenticeship that engages all her resources and sharpens her awareness her about her shortcomings, including in using to express herself. From the stage deficiency language of narcissistic investment to the discovery of her social self, Lori expands the boundaries of her experience of womanhood. Not to relate to her bodily an only does she learn pleasures through sexual love but she also learns to integrate intense, unpossessive her femaleness and her of a sense thus humanness, attaining fulfillment and plenitude. rules and The cultural of gender in Lori's love as far as heterosexual kinship operate trajectory

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does Lori and a possible not are concerned. Yet, marriage of a relationship them as constraints, for the closure experience is not incompatible with the energies of her selfhood, represented In fact, of full her feminine by the development sexuality. decensored itself as the locus of desire by which she body asserts meets the desire of the other for the other and for herself. rests on the The narrative structure of Uma aprendizagem set up by the bildungsroman, the apprenticeship pattern genre that as the since Goethe's Wilhelm has been regarded Meister (1797) narrative model for crisis of the depiction of a young man's a crisis that to advances in a linear identity, progress steady a male its resolution in a known social world. By and large to the related real has been affair, closely bildungsroman of gender relations. Its conventions (the organization practices of sequence, action and subject the traditional reinforce matter) to a that and activity associates movement, ideologeme progress, man's world, whereas woman is seen in terms of her interrelatedness with nature. of the bildungsroman, to the pattern According man's identity is invariably posed as being dynamic and existento tial in opposition to the static nature accorded and essential to physical is restricted woman, whose apprenticeship maturation, the basic for marriage and motherhood. requirement Lispector's of the the narrative of appropriation pattern bildungsroman a departure from the male-centered The female tradition. signals character is placed a at the center of becoming, of a process and motherthat, process eventually, might lead her to marriage hood but not at the expense of her personhood and humanity. Annis Prat, who sought to describe of the female the difference based of on her of the literary practice bildungsroman study modern women writers, that conceived the typical as being pattern of a series of encounters and world of nature with the matrilineal the patrilineal societal is particuHer definition structure. relevant with regard to Uma aprendizagem, an for it provides larly into the dialectic In fact, movement of Lori's insight journey. Lori's descent into her psyche an (where she is able to establish intimate contact with nature's the energies, especially mythical is countered to the social return sea) world, always by her the wise the who holds represented (15), by Ulisses, stranger norm based on the structure of a sex/gender power of the cultural The opposition at the basis of the system. man/woman, which lies narrative framework of Uma aprendizagem, elaboration needs further for it raises some interesting about how Lispector here, points handles the that structures of gender and power interweaving constitute the on sexual traditional built narratives Bildung polarity. From the start, Ulisses' marked by his verbal skills, wisdom, him in a position of ascendancy who is initially over Lori, places characterized From a subject-position, by her inarticulateness. Ulisses her in the condition who of a creator/artisan approaches is going to make her out of a bare and white canvas--"uma tela nua e branca, s6 faltando usar os pinceis. que se Depois que descobri a tela era nua, era tambem enegrecida vinda por uma fumaca densa,

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de algum fogo ruim, e que nao seria In this facil (53). limpa-la" Lori is likened smoke coming from a bad to darkened metaphor, a comparison that is built on traditional fire, imagery (dark-bad) and that evokes the cultural a myth that is evil, myth of female in Lori's inscribed Ulisses is the one to actually very name. that Lori comes from Loreley, of German folklore the siren explain As an embodiment of sexual alluresung in a poem by H. Heine. she brings death who approach fishermen ment, her, upon the attracted In the light of these facts, by her beautiful songs. Lori's with many lovers, and her attempts to life, past peopled seduce at the beginning Ulisses of the novel the metawarrant link between badness and active features that phorical sexuality, characterize the female archetype of evil. In this it is context, not difficult to arrive at the conclusion that Ulisses' conceptualization of Lori, which is embedded in the male prerogative of is charged with ideological that creation, meaning to the extent his teaching/creation a transformation entails of her "muteness," which connotes a disruptive and marginal into an body language, of speech and sexual role which would conform acceptable pattern to the context of utterances and roles accorded to woman within Ulisses' and role his patriarchy. By analogy, position suggest to the Greek mythic hero whose knowledge and patience kinship enabled him not to avoid Circe's craft (the only spell magic associated with female sexuality and death) but also to assert his of his woman/his on his return home. estate ownership On the one hand, the text's site points literary archaeological to traditional definitions: gender man-subject-knowledge/womanon female becoming, Yet, on focusing object-instinct. Lispector's narrative decenters and discourages those associations that freeze into of power. For example, Ulisses' selfgender categories assertiveness and rock-like their lose gradually stability affirmative and somewhat character as he comes to aggressive realize that Lori's growth does not depend so much on his tutoring but on her self-determination. Lori does not fit Furthermore, into the role of the seductress nor is she inscribed in the telos of "normal" which associates woman with femininity passivity, and selflessness. In short, Lori does not become the conformity static of Ulisses' of her mentor's a replica creation, object of her, the imago that legitimizes his "superior human perception condition" (13). On challenging the dominant discourse of gender which exists in cultural Uma aprendizagem the basic enhances discourse, question of female within the context of the social construction becoming of gendered in a patriarchal This statement subjects society. may sound contradictory, at first Yet, it is my argument that glance. treatment of identity and sexuality in her portrayal Lispector's of Lori is not couched on the assumption that woman constitutes herself as a lack or as silence the within order symbolic on the idea of castration. On the the predicated contrary, different of Lori's her access to a stages development give dimension of female that bypasses the laws of repression identity in the oedipal and projects her otherness into encompassed crisis,

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the while the and symbolic binary exceeding threatening that guarantees its signification.3 male-female, opposition, At the kernel lies of Lori's linear and vertical the journey "Who am I?" and its homologous "Who is Ulisses?" question opposite an answer for this a slow apprenticeship question Finding implies of differentiation with its for sexuality. assumed consequences Since it is language, the ultimate of culture, system signifying which makes and differentiation the possible consequently formulation of as an inLori's subject-positions, emergence dividual woman is poignantly in terms of her relationship posed to language and to the Other, who is Ulisses. Her psycho-sexual and social the problems of female development representastages tion in language and in ideology. At the beginning Lori's and disconof dispossession feelings nectedness are determined of displaceexperience by her social her positioning as object the psycho-sexual both within ment, and the sociocultural This experience alienates situation. script her from the possibility of appropriating a language by which she would be able to produce for her constitution meanings necessary as a subject. Her ontological metoformlessness, expressed and metaphorically of "crippledness" (17) nymically by her sense makes her into an empty and painful e "infimo corpo vazio entity, doloroso" vis-a-vis other human beings. The only joy of (39), alive is felt with an erotic-narcissistic relation being through her body, whose rhythms mark off conthe site of an anarchic centric outside a structured relation to an object: sexuality, nao era para ela de 'meditagao' "aquela epoca que de subito ridicula: estava vibrando em puro como lhe parecia desejo acontecia antes e depois da menstruagao" As such, Lori (12). shrinks into the circuit of her desire specular image where becomes an all aim and goal. source, impulse, encompassing she is associated with the image of the Sphinx, the Significantly, of femininity that both challenges and threatens enigmatic figure and Thus she representation interpretation. imagines sadly herself to Ulisses: meu amor, ou serei "decifra-me, saying a devorar" the eager mouth for (14). Or, she feels obrigada an allusion to the insatiable that bears (20), nothing organ-hole and sexual connotation and which tends to absorb and digestive in a movement that subverts the law. At this Lori devour, stage, embodies what Derrida calls the "consciousness-in-itself" (146), the silent, intuitive, pre-social, pre-discursive being who feels the world through the mediation of her body's The day language. "nao fazia vermelho" (19); only in her was there red. Lori's with Ulisses and her growing attachment to relationship him means her into the human network conand, reintegration her learning to become a woman and an individual. He sequently, teaches her to name herself I" name is upon being asked--"my her in the chain where he as "you" (10)--placing signifying becomes the sign of her entry into the locus of a representing and This means that in order to represent representable subject. herself she has to recognize the of Ulisses, has to meaning him as the privileged of difference, the acknowledge signifier

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of her desire. in this The tensions situation inherent signifier the psycho-sexual the organizaoscillations that attend produce tion of female within the social relations of patriarchy. identity On the one hand Lori does not want to learn from him anything because is not natural To understand for her (156). is thinking limited whereas Not not to understand "vast" to is (42). understand a diffused is equivalent to the freedom of being spot of instincts, sweetness the silent and ferocity, of experiencing soul of animal life mark of or of feeling her strong (42), roots, the agrarian that swells up in her blood (41) urging her to legacy an intimacy with the cold and perfumed earth. She is the ancient woman (107), the prophetess who wakes up of rituals long forgotten from her secular within From the spaciousness from (83). sleep she comes (70), which of her body in she resists the surrender sexual for in her mind surrender and is equated to death love, So she is glad when Ulisses her does not understand nothingness. for that means she is not totally his grasp. While within (72), she is and didacticism, annoyed at times with Ulisses' superiority for acting as if she were hypnotized mostly annoyed at herself by him (56). On the other hand, she feels for his protection fragile, yearns absolute when considering the possibility (16) and feels despair of losing him (64). Under the spell of his masculine (72) beauty she defines herself as a lover of men. On grieving her alienation from the earth to connect she longs with what represents (41) "children." These oscillations of that the displacement reveal across are evident in a scene subjectivity positions contradictory that can be appropriately the mirror stage. the called On seeing in a mirror, Lori stands in awe, image of her body reflected as if she has been cut off surprised isolation, by its feeling from herself. For a moment, she has the impression of being observed as if she were an object, to her former an allusion narcissistic Soon however, the impression is dispelled impulse. and she begins to think of herself and as a whole unit (inner the a language mediation of that her outer) through places in relation to the absent of Ulisses discourse which meaning/being she has interiorized: ela "mas, ja influenciada por Ulisses, chamaria de ser. de: Encontrar na figura exterior os ecos gosto da figura interna: eu ah, entao e verdade que eu nao imaginei: existo" At this Lori her difference (17). moment, recognizes a range of gender-marked she discourses. through Accordingly, thinks her human condition is small when compared to Ulisses' because her body is smaller than thought. herself By conceiving in relation to Ulisses in terms of body (being) x thought (not Lori enters into the order of the symbolical structure having), where a coherent an impossibility for becomes subject-position Her subjectivity woman. a language that is steeped in introjects the cultural of gender. Lori becomes the "subjected production torn between retreat and acceptance: being" . . .ela, dos geral com gratidao a superioridade que reconhecia homens que tinham cheiro de homens e nao de

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e reconhecia com irritacao que na verdade perfume, esses chamava de ela ou pensamentos agudos que sensatos de sua convivencia mais ja eram resultado estreita com Ulisses. (18) The condition of Lori to perceive difference which leads herself in a sex-specific raises implications position important in her representation desire is not conof desire. Although directed toward Ulisses, it is felt the love-object, in sciously terms of absence, in in the lack of rain, encoded metaphorically the dryness that evokes In this female context, (22). sterility the deepest need within the need of rain to ease the sexuality, of what is burning inscribes her within inside the Lori, pain cultural form of female norm that the legitimized regulates for "demand" guarantees desire that woman's active be sexuality, defined within and reproduction. heterosexuality to Lacan's of language the very acquisition theories, According is the result of the alienation from the primary of the subject of desire, the mother. must necessarily be This desire object so that the subject in the Symbolic can come into being repressed Order and enter the social This relations which that entails. means an acceptance of the of the phallus as the representation Law of the Father. in which difference Language is thus the site is articulated as who speaks is forever loss--the subject alienated from the Other in relation is lacking. to whom he/she In the Symbolic the Other is the structure that Order, produces the subject, the structure is registered as where the unconscious in short, it is the signifier which meaning is desire; through For woman, entry means not the into possible. only language of a desire that is erotic and concentric as far as her repression the femininity of of all women, and, above all, body experiences the mother, but the acceptance of the of the Law of the Father, as a cultural/ideological to which in relation phallus signifier is constituted as and negative lack. femininity Repression difference become the basis of "normal" within the femininity In Lacan's scheme, economy of symbolic representation. femininity itself becomes the term by which discourse is made repressed The feminine takes its the absence or with possible. place silence that discourse represses. Even though Lori's access to language and self-representation entails in a system of sex/gender her differences, positionality discourse comes to subvert the "alleged" repression upon which the order is constituted and thus extends desire symbolic beyond the traditional limits of meaning and representation, with consefor her She Ulisses two characterization. writes quences In the first, she describes herself as the body/home of messages. a savage and sweet black whose nose, fresh and humid, horse, elicits her caress and kisses Her discourse (26). explicitly articulates a relationship between her and the horse, but not a direct one. It could be argued that the horse as a phallic the of a lack representative and, crystallizes representation takes on the status of the signifier from which the therefore,

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is separated. becomes the symbol of a the horse Thus, subject desire that is in the unconscious inscribed and repressed formulated in terms of a desire of the other. it must be However, noted that the text just the symbolic simulates a lack. In fact, is placed in a metaphorical text where the crossings and signifier of meaning in a game of sameness and difference--the slidings horse is in and out--deconstruct of the fixed the meaning as a symbolic it as something structure, signifier producing without much meaning. in the Lori's By indulging imaginary, an empty space where the dimension of repression message engenders about by desire is put into play at the level of the text brought and reduced to a joke. Her satisfaction at writing it lies on the of textuality, of the nonwhich is that voluptuous experience The play of signifiers repressed body. opens out to significance she which, opposed to signification, wipes out differentiation--is the horse or not? A similar is at work in yet another when Lori instance process a note after writes a lonely of inward unrest. The message night and the evening of the mountains silence begins by describing moves into references to the silence us (35). As a new within of a lack, is the spring motive of Lori's silence representative need to communicate whom she with in relation to Ulisses, for articulation and meaning. fails on Yet, her message struggles the communicative level because and her words say everything the effect of a silence in which she, as a produce nothing--they is lost or self-effaced. Silence then is the representasubject, tion of the non-dit, of the other scene--Lori's interiority--where she is the signifier outside a signifying While confirming chain. her access to the symbolic becomes order of language, her message an obstacle the castrating dimension of symbolic against representation. It rather of re-actualizes the pleasure of free play, of a discourse that delivers her into the non-productive exchange, of 6criture, of which is the transgression exhilarating experience the "murder of the signifier":4 desire, Escrever aliviou-a. Estava de olheiras nao pela noite mas por um instante--ah como Ulisses dormida, cansada, de saber--feliz. o se nao expressara gostaria Porque, falara como um macaco inexpressivel silencio, que nao se transmitindo grunhe e faz gestos incongruentes, sabe o qua. L6ri era. Mas ela era. O que? (37) Lori's discourse the mode of a subActually, encapsulates versive which dislodges of from the context production meaning difference as absence inscribed where in the order, symbolic Ulisses is the Other, the locus of Lori's definition as a social self a sex/gender in (a woman within system). Meaning is replaced a space other than the symbolic that difference as a renders of boundaries, a plurality that moves to the limits of loosening the same. This mode points to the crossing of boundaries that characterizes Lori's From the moment that self-development. out her insertion the dialectics of into spells language

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the advent into consciousof her subjectivity intersubjectivity, ness becomes possible. On the one hand, Lori's self-conscious of reflecting process arrived at through her interaction with Ulisses upon an identity is triggered delivered from the She is gradually by language. of non-being into an awareness she exists and that that pain Ulisses is the mirror that to her own existence bears witness Her reintegration network into the social the (63). through of love represents constraints on her thought dynamics significant and perception. in the cultural she is placed and Consequently, discursive of the symbolic "Who am I?" order where the question leads to an internalization as "not of the feminine necessarily as loss and absence. On the other hand, also having," language makes possible an opposite a movement back to the self movement, that enables to read the silent, Lori unrecorded of experience and thus recover the integrity of knowing/sensing that femininity her entry into language threatens to neutralize. In fact, a large on Lori's the focuses of novel portion the which she of awakening, solitary self-discovery journey undertakes motivated before the that by the awareness touching she must touch herself This means overturning the world, (58). of the symbolic as far as another frame of reference is authority concerned. Instead of Ulisses, the reference becomes her body, the hard core and the experimental in and for site of a being itself the source of life and creation self-sufficient (88), (87), in its perfect The narrator the content of roundness. reproduces her consciousness: "A mulher nao recebe nem transtransmissao Nao precisa mite. de comunicacao" a virtual to (85), challenge Ulisses' statement. ". . . voce e Lori, categorial aprendera, entao em cheio a grande experimentara que e de se alegria de transmitir" comunicar, (99). In her ritualistic contacts with the sea, Lori reappropriates the as a signifier detached from the chain. body signifying Associated with female rebirth and sexuality, a the sea releases new intensity of perception and being in Lori and she feels a like woman who suddenly awakens from secular prehistoric (83) to sleep "um corpo a corpo consigo mesma" engage in rituals long forgotten, As she opens her way into the cold water that opposes her (81). like "the prow of a woman" that advances "um pouco mais dura e here the traditional role (85) (the erotic aspera" image reverses of male penetration), Lori feels the sea inside her as "o liquido do homem" (84). At the same time, she recognizes the sea espesso as her motherly cradle In this of masculine/ (121). crossing feminine the experience is that of a perfect elements, imaginary "toda a si mesma" (84). Such a unity is further unity, igual reinforced in the moment when Lori is overtaken a by "maresia," that she reads as the feminine word and signifier gender-marked the ungendered marked masculine smell The signifier thus (120). makes visible the invisible, the mark of the feminine recuperating as a presence, while the hierarchical As a subverting pairing. of a female metaphor specific condition--fertilization/conis associated with the amniotic water of the ception--"maresia"

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maternal the dialectical of self and other body where process on the real, instead of on the symbolic. operates treatment of the of Lori's last Lispector's apstage a narrative/discursive of this prenticeship represents unfolding maternal in its subversive to transform metaphor existing capacity attached to gender. that this metaphor It is interesting meanings is reworked in the context of an ideological of convergence of the and natural (an awareness femininity feminine/maternal and womanhood (a sense of gender the socialized body) identity, which is the basis for the social relations of woman in body, this means that Lori's "rite de passage," patriarchy). Basically followed her of separation from Ulisses, enables by a long period to rescue not only the meaning of her relationship with nature but also the meaning of social The result is "a new relationships. realism" as Lori calls and her an attitude towards her self it, which inscribes her in the of sexuality script psycho-sexual heterosexual love to which the erotic and familial according for woman culminates in the exchange in the bedroom. experience As Lori tries to convince de si mesmo nao herself that "a entrega a morte e sim a vida" she recognizes the body as (124), significa both the material basis of female "um dom" (147), and existence, the site of an overpowering with desire to absorb and merge Ulisses She assumes her position as a gendered (129). subject: she now loves with a mother's love (154). the backdrop of a seasonal Against change and its conventional to spring, to rain, to life-imagery--winter dryness sterility Lori completes her apprenticeship with the certainty that she has learned what Ulisses had never dreamed of teaching The her (173). last which portrays the long love-making delinechapter, scene, ates Lori as a stunning, desirous in the dark woman, overflowing torrents of an inexhaustible Her emotional fulfillwell-being. ment and physical her into what she perceives as pleasure project the greatest freedom of all--a "without mode or form" subject She dwells in an intense, where vast internal (167). space the "rules" violates of logical her discourse to capture language movement into and out of being: "eu nao sou eu . . . Eu me sei como a larva se transmuta em crisalida: esta e a minha vida entre e animal" (165). vegetal This at the threshold constitutes the basis of the being maternal that is reworked in this last scene ontological metaphor and which comes to subvert, from within, the closure of a feminine to the traditional hierarchical identity according male/female model. The first maternal at the image reproduces, symbolic the patriarchal of the mother which sustains the level, conception As Lori comes to Ulisses' order. the she becomes flat, symbolic embodiment of the madonna, "the Pieta, mother of all men" (163), in front of whom Ulisses kneels as if in front of a mother, and in whose his head (161). For Lori, these lap he rests gestures recall the symbolic of her own father and the fear of authority with men (162). a this disappointment However, image undergoes of erosion in the context of the narrative process development. The experience of sexuality blurs its ideological force. gradually

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As Lori and into the probes pleasurable deeper passionate sensations of her body, whole and intact she finds herself "full of wonders as if full of stars" Endowed now with language, (174). she becomes the maternal from her body and voice, poetic speaking towards her own origins: Mas acho que gesturing "quem sou eu? sei: vida profundamente sou squela e agora que tem a pr6pria tambem a tua. Eu bebi a nossa Vis-a-vis vida" Lori's (174). Ulisses' "E sua voz voice sounds as if he were lost: discourse, soara como a de um perdido" (174). Lori's discourse evokes a loosening of the boundaries between self and other, and object, while this multisubject enclosing within This momentary fullness her. or "jouissance" draws plicity out with associations the metaphorical gestation, suggesting of oneness and ecstasy is which both of union and feeling Lori's luminous stream of words, the separateness. Hearing of which is Ulisses' discourse breaks down into lost, meaning he still the promise thinks of articulation is silence, although not His are the fulfilled. last words: ". . . eu penso o (175). seguinte:" The maternal that at the end of the novel metaphor emerges encodes a different from the earlier maternal production image. It swells the of the traditional of the conception meaning maternal the of and, perturbs consequently, symbolic logic The metaphor "Eu bebi a nossa vida" delineates a representation. where Lispector out the difference of gynocentric space plays a difference on the symbolic structured where femininity, order, it transgresses its own boundaries the privileged by subverting of the signifier as the sign of the social order built on position and paternal opposition binary hierarchy.

NOTES "No raiar de Clarice 1See the essay in Varios Lispector," escritos Duas Cidades, (Sao Paulo: 1977). 2See: Ana Cristina Vianna "A personalidade Figueiredo, feminina na literatura de Clarice Literario Lispector," Suplemento de Minas Gerais, 21:1021 Nadia Battela "A Gotlib, (May 6, 1986); casa: encantos e desencantos do espaco domestico Contos, Literario de Minas Gerais 19:927 feminino," Suplemento (July 5, Bella "Clarice um sopro de plenitude," 1984); Josef, Lispector, Literario de Minas Gerais 14:687 Suplemento (December 4, 1979). to Roland Barthes, to the 3According "signification" belongs realm of meanings fixed within whereas society "significance" to the realm of production belongs through the play of signifiers. 4I am indebted to current French theories of the feminine, to Michele article Into particularly Montreley's "Inquiry in m/f--A feminist no. 1 (1978): 83-99. Femininity," journal,

Schmidt Works Cited

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Borelli, "Clarice, Suplemento Olga. Olga Borelli." segundo Literario de Minas Gerais 8-9. 22:1091 (December 19, 1987): Lima. In A literatura V. Vol. no Brasil--Modernismo. Costa, Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Sul Americana, 1970. David B. Allison. Trans. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena. Jacques. IL: 1973. Northwestern Evanston, Press, University "A experiencia In Alvaro. Clarice Lins, incompleta: Lispector." Os mortos de sobrecasaca. CiviliEditora Rio de Janeiro: zacao Brasileira, 1963. Clarice. Uma aprendizagem dos prazeres. ou o livro Lispector, Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio Editora, 1969. Um sopro de vida. Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro: 1978. "0 mundo imaginario In O de Clarice Nunes, Benedito. Lispector." dorso do tigre. Sao Paulo: 1969. Perspectiva, Annis. "Women and Nature in Modern Fiction." Prat, Contemporary Literature 13 (1972): 476-90.