Interspecies Literature: Clarice Lispector's Zoophytographia

Patrícia Vieira

doi:10.21471/jls.v2i2.194

Abstract

This essay analyzes the role plants and animals play in Clarice Lispector’s work. I argue that Lispector often stages a face-to-face encounter with non-humans to trigger a process of defamiliarization, whereby our anthropocentric values and norms come undone. I discuss exemples of this encounter in short stories from Laços de Família and in the novel A Paixão segundo G.H. In these works, Lispector reflects upon concepts we usually take for granted, such as reason or language, a process that results in a profound transformation and extension of these concepts to our non-human others.

Highlights

This essay analyzes the role plants and animals play in Clarice Lispector’s work
As I argue in the present essay, that literature is one of the many forms of expression used by living beings, which writers incorporate into their aesthetic praxis
Cats and dogs are worth more than literature but she finds in them, as well as in other animals and plants, the main source of her reflections on existence. It is through our manifold relations with our others that we come to understand our co-belonging in the continuum of life

Summary

Introduction

This essay analyzes the role plants and animals play in Clarice Lispector’s work. I argue that Lispector often stages a face-to-face encounter with non-humans to trigger a process of defamiliarization, whereby our anthropocentric values and norms come undone. Cats and dogs are worth more than literature but she finds in them, as well as in other animals and plants, the main source of her reflections on existence.

Results

Conclusion