Macabéa In Lipector's The Hour Of The Star

Macabéa’s humanity is portrayed by the narrator in Lispector’s The Hour of the Star by her being described as a unattractive, unnourished, unwanted, poor, and inexperienced girl. She struggles to survive in the slums of Northeast Brazil’s Rio de Janeirom and finding a sense of place. She is lost in the world and desperately seeks attention that she’ll never get. “She needed others in order to believe in herself, otherwise she’d get lost in the successive and round emptiness inside her” (29). She only feels like she is somebody in the world when she is with a person. She remains the “innocent victim of life” and her position in society left her with not knowing what it was like to eat lunch or dinner in a restaurant, receiving a letter or phone call, never broke out of habits, never knew what things meant, never thought people offended her, never threw up, didn’t know how to cry,doesn’t understand why rhinos exist, believes that everything happens just because, believes there’s no struggle possible, doesn’t know what a sickness is, never had anyone to kiss when she was little so she kissed the wall, and had certain beliefs because she believed in them so that was the reasoning for their “existence”. She was only able to face life because she had the pure …show more content…
Lispector displays her feelings through her voice and Macabéa’s process reflects in the male character even though he has a wealthier status than Macabéa. He stands in the opposite social position of her, however, he still feels nonetheless, loneliness, and as invisible to others as her. “I have nothing better to do in the world while I wait for death” (61). Both of these characters possess a constant hunger for some meaning in their tasteless life and some greater attachment with the world. “She existed. That’s it. And me? The only thing known about me is that I breathe”