Clarice Lispector and the Historical Context in “A Hora da Estrela”

Abstract

This article contemplates Clarice Lispector’s “A hora da estrela” (The Hour of the Star), based on Jauss´ Reception Theory, which takes into account the historical context in literary analyses. Published in late 1977,  this work – which tells the story of Macabéa - a natural born northeast Brazilian woman that “not knowing why or how” moves to the “unbelievable city of Rio de Janeiro” – is considered by many scholars the “most explicitly social” one  done by the author. Up to that moment, her books had frequently been accused by critics of “deviating” from reality, focusing predominantly on psychological features and leaving social and political contexts aside. In “A Hora da Estrela”, the social themes become more explicit, representing a kind of “rupture” in the writer´s literary career, which was interrupted by her death, the same year of its publication. The article is an attempt to apprehend traces of the dialogic relation between the writer´s last work, before her death, and its context, which includes the period of dictatorship in Brazil. In order to do that, this study also makes a comparison between the book and the film version, directed by Glauber Rocha.