The Hour of the Star: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Hour of the Star" is a novel that intricately explores the lives of its central characters, each reflecting deeper themes of identity, social class, and existential struggle. The narrator, Rodrigo S. M., serves as an outsider who grapples with his own self-awareness while attempting to tell the story of Macabéa, a young orphan from Northeast Brazil. Macabéa embodies the challenges of poverty and alienation, navigating life in Rio de Janeiro while confronting her physical and emotional struggles, often unaware of her own existence. Her boyfriend, Olímpico de Jesus Moreira Chaves, also hails from the Northeast and seeks to redefine himself through a facade of ambition and violence, revealing a complex mixture of aspiration and despair. He harbors dreams of becoming a politician and exhibits a peculiar fascination with death and artistry. The competent and confident Glória, Macabéa's coworker, contrasts sharply with her, highlighting themes of beauty and desire within societal frameworks. Finally, Madame Carlota, a fortune-teller, adds a mystical layer to the narrative, intertwining her past with Macabéa's fate. Together, these characters create a rich tapestry that challenges readers to reflect on the human condition amidst socioeconomic struggles and existential dilemmas.
The Hour of the Star: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Clarice Lispector
First published: A Hora da Estrela, 1977 (English translation, 1986)
Genre: Novella
Locale: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot: Social realism
Time: The 1970's
Rodrigo S. M., the intensely self-conscious narrator who struggles to write the story of Macabéa. He describes himself as an outsider who is essentially classless, as he is considered strange by the upper class, viewed with suspicion by the bourgeoisie, and avoided by the lower class. His financial situation is such that he does not have to worry about where his next meal is coming from. After having caught a glimpse of a girl from the Northeast, he becomes obsessed with creating a life for her. His obsessive self-reflection and marginality suggest to the reader his antecedents in the narrators of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and in Fyodor Dostoevski's Underground Man. He declares that his writing of the narrative is accompanied by a nagging toothache resulting from an exposed nerve and by the music of a street-corner violinist.
Macabéa, a nineteen-year-old orphan from the northeastern Brazilian province of Alagoas. Her parents died when she was an infant, and she was reared by an unloving and abusive aunt. Barely literate, her only education beyond three years of primary schooling was a short typing course. She has migrated to Rio de Janeiro, where she works in an office. Macabéa, born under an unlucky star, covers her blotchy face with a layer of white powder and suffers from a chronic dripping nose and a hacking cough; she emits an unpleasant body odor, for she rarely washes, and she exists on hot dogs, coffee, and soft drinks. Although she affirms her identity by asserting, “I am a typist and a virgin, and I like coca-cola,” she is hardly aware of her own existence. What awareness she does have comes strictly through her senses.
Olímpico de Jesus Moreira Chaves, Macabéa's boyfriend, who has also emigrated from the Northeast. In many respects, he is a self-made character, starting with his name, adopted to mask the fact that his true surname, Jesus, marked him as illegitimate. He works in a metal factory transferring metal rods from one area to another, but he insists on calling himself a metallurgist. By murdering a rival and by becoming adept at petty theft, he has confirmed his manhood to himself. A curious artistic sensibility reveals itself in his carvings of effigies of saints, which he refuses to sell because he finds them so attractive. He has a morbid fascination for funerals, which terrify him but which he attends at least twice a week. Although being a bullfighter is his dream (he is fascinated by blood and knives), his goal is to become a politician.
Glória, Macabéa's much more competent officemate, a voluptuous and self-confident young woman. Although both the narrator and Macabéa describe her as ugly, she is well aware of her charms. The daughter of a butcher, she is well fed and lives on a street named after a general. Her animal magnetism and the attraction of her father's profession prove to be irresistible to Olímpico.
Madame Carlota, a talkative fortune-teller. Madama Carlota is as interested in relating her own history to Macabéa as she is in revealing what the cards can tell about her client's destiny. She credits Jesus with her rise from prostitute to brothel owner to fortune-teller.