The Problematics of the Body in Clarice Lispector's "Family Ties"

Abstract

Feminist readings of Clarice Lispector's collection of short stories, Family generally focus on preponderance of women protagonists in stories and their? mostly short-lived?attempts to assert themselves as autonomous human beings by escaping narrowly defined roles imposed upon them by a male-dominated society. Thus A. M. Wheeler, in his article Animal Imagery as Reflection of Gender Roles in Clarice Lispector's Family Ties, states that stories primarily relate struggle of women to realize themselves as subjects and to escape their role as objects (125), and Magda Velloso Fernandes de Tolentino, in a comparative analysis of story Imitation of Rose, asserts that Lispector denounces fact that women cannot indulge in their own search for self-fulfillment, but rather act as instruments of their men's comfort (75). Marta Peixoto, in a similar vein, affirms that through plots of stories and inner conflicts of heroines, Lispector challenges conventional roles, showing that allegiances to others those roles demand lead to a loss of selfhood. The protagonists' efforts toward recuperating self emerge as dissatisfaction, rage, or even madness (288-89). Focusing on women characters' difficulties in verbalizing their thoughts in story Daydreams of a Drunk Woman, Naomi Lindstrom concludes that the total result is Lispector's fictional critique of woman's difficulties with verbal expression?a critique that parallels concerns of feminism (Feminist Discourse Analysis 9). 34