Human Suffering in Clarice Lispector's Short Stories
"The wound is the place where the Light enters you" (Rumi). As the 13th-century Persian poet pens suffering; Lispector faced the harsh reality of the prejudiced world from her early childhood, which helped her to develop the core of human suffering as an inevitable fate and unfair characterization through the use of symbolism, anthropomorphism, and dark humor. Lispector uses anthropomorphism to convey human suffering as an inevitable outcome and unfair characterization. In her short stories "A Remarkable Love Story," and "The chicken," Lispector gives human qualities to both the rooster and the hen to express her distressed feelings as well as opinions about human life. In the story
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The phrase is significant because it shows what people think of suffering, especially the children. Lispector portrays suffering in something more than a metaphysical pain and hurt. She explains human anguish and suffering as a dangerous journey people feel throughout their life, making it endless and irrepressible. Understanding the severity of the issue of self-suffering, Lispector was obligated to address her response to human suffering via the “Smallest Woman in the World”. The fact she includes the woman's feeling as she remembers her childhood, "They played with the dead girl, bathing her and feeding her little tidbits, and they punished her only to be able to kiss and comfort her afterward" ("Smallest Woman in the World" 91). The mother’s reminiscent of her dark past affects the reader because the reader could connect to such suffering and relate to her as well as helps to reason why Lispector chose to address the issue of human suffering. In the anecdote by the mother, the dead girl and those who played with her suffered from the same unconditional pain felt by her. Although she was already dead and did not believe anything, the fact "they" played with her shows the dark humor in that sense it was an unfair characterization. The dead girl was suffering even more after her death while those around her were playing with her. In the context of Lispector, the reader could relate to such a story at least once in their lifetime where the victim was suffering, and the perpetrators were set free. Similar to a play or an act, the audience roll their dice to predict the character’s demise. The use of dark humor contributes to the inevitable outcome and unfair characterization because it helps to understand and relate to the story while feeling similar
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her writing. Due to the oppressive government, women were confined to their traditional roles and in showing the lack of freedom, both mentally and physically, that this imposes on them, Clarice Lispector justifies her existentialist viewpoints through her writings; life is pain, misery, and inevitably death. These viewpoints are imminent when discussing the overall lack of freedom in Lispector’s stories “The Chicken”, “The Smallest Woman in the World”, and “Preciousness”.
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