The bodies of Ângela Pralini and Macabéa: places of a melancholic record

Abstract

The body has long been the focus of study by all those concerned with human suffering, both physically and psychologically. As a result of a doctoral research project, this article will analyze the bodies of Clarice’s characters Ângela Pralini and Macabéa. The discursive bundle (a large number of words) in A Breath of Life and The Hour of the Starr depicts two bewildered, dysfunctional, non-standard socio-literary fictional beings. Almost always, Macabéa sniffled, rubbing her despair on the hem of her dress. As her body reveals rickets and fragility, she speaks weakly and, in a few words, revealing an alienated and weak language. In The Hour of the Star, the unsaid persists in innuendo. As a result of the lack of words in Macabéa’s body, her life will be marked by melancholy writing, a life in which mismatches and misplaced desires will prevail. Ângela’s body is dying. Her solitude is remarkable because it is not just any solitude: it is the solitude of God. Her body is paradoxical, exploding into nothingness. This is a body with unstable self-esteem because sometimes it wants to take care of life, and sometimes it displays the incurable helplessness of the melancholic. For this analysis, studies by Lambotte (1997, 2000), Freud (1980), Delouya (2000), among others, are fundamental.