“If I have to be an object, let me be an object that screams,” Clarice Lispector, a Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist, once wrote in her novel The Stream of Life (1973). In the visceral depths of human emotion, where grief and rage often intertwine, Lispector’s writings represent a domain of unrestrained emotions, creating a complex whirlwind of expression. It stands in stark contrast to the reality that surrounds us, a world often sanitized and polished by societal expectations. Yet, ironically, it is within this realm of raw emotions that we find a true reflection of the experiences of working-class women, navigating the burdens of existence with resilience and grace. Lispector’s characters breathe, experience and observe life through their feelings. Their truest form of existence is interior. Nonetheless, their feelings are not reduced to formless ideas that cannot meaningfully influence change or incite action. Instead, these feelings center the identity of working-class women in a political climate that erases their selfhood, and where there is still political and cultural vulnerability associated with their female identity. Lispector’s raw portrayals of working-class women, unfiltered by societal expectations, shatter the delicate façade of femininity,…
From Brazil to Egypt: Working-Class Women Find their Voice in Clarice Lispector’s Novels
November 18, 2023
