REMEMBER ME: IDENTITY FORMATION IN CLARICE LISPECTOR, ISABEL ALLENDE, AND MICHELLE CLIFF. Jeanine Luciana Lino Costa A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Curriculum of Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Professor Diane R. Leonard Reader: Professor Fred Clark Reader: Professor Grant Farred Reader: Professor Juan Carlos González-Espitia Reader: Professor Alicia Rivero © 2006 Jeanine Luciana Lino Costa ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JEANINE LUCIANA LINO COSTA: Remember Me: Identity Formation in Clarice Lispector, Isabel Allende, and Michelle Cliff (Under the direction of Diane R. Leonard) This dissertation deals with contemporary women writing in Spanish America, Brazil, and the Caribbean. I explore how identity is constructed in Clarice Lispector’s Perto do coração selvagem [Near to the Wild Heart], A paixão segundo G.H. [The Passion According to G.H.], Água viva [The Stream of Life], and A hora da estrela [The Hour of the Star]; Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna, Hija de la fortuna [Daughter of Fortune], Retrato en sepia [Portrait in Sepia], and La casa de los espíritus [The House of the Spirits]; Michelle Cliff’s Abeng, No Telephone to Heaven, and Free Enterprise. In these texts the characters have difficulty accepting their compulsory gender roles, which are for the most part attributable to a hierarchical, male-dominated society and perpetuated by almost everyone. I argue that this process of gender identity formation is both particular (individual, formed by the inner strength of each character) and collective (shaped by society’s demands). Since gender identity formation is an open-ended process, none of the characters can be said to have clearly defined their genders or to have definitively shaped their identities. Other issues, such as class and race, also play an important role in shaping identity and are dealt with in my analysis. The role of history is questioned in the works of Isabel Allende and Michelle Cliff, who attempt to bring new perspectives to historical facts. My theoretical approach iii synthesizes various analyses by scholars such as Judith Butler, Benedito Nunes, Hélène Cixous, Nancy Chodorow, and Stuart Hall. Chapter I discusses some complexities regarding the definition of gender as well as gender relations in Latin America and the necessity of mutual support among genders. Chapter II reads Clarice Lispector’s novels, paying particular attention to the journey within that composes the characters’ search for identity. The third chapter argues that Isabel Allende’s texts encompass a search for the self with rewritings of history from a woman’s point of view. Chapter IV examines Michelle Cliff’s novels, which present strong awakenings concerning racial as well as gender identity and the struggle for power in the relation between colonized and colonizer. iv To the great women in my life: my grandmother Jandira, my great-aunt Alice, my mother Jeanete, my aunt Joanice, and my daughters Joyce and Gabrielle. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Dr. Leonard and the committee members. To Dr. Gazzola for showing me the way to Chapel Hill and for inspiring me to like literature. To all my professors who guided me through this long and interesting journey. To my husband Edson José da Costa, for his support and for pushing me to finish—as fast as possible. To my friends, especially my dearest Robson Ferreira and Edna de Araújo. To my family: great-aunt Alice, for all the rosaries you prayed for me and my girls, uncles (Jadir, Jáime, Jarbas, José Lucas), aunts (Juracy, Jô, Joana d’Arc, Jandira), cousins (Leni, Uli, Carol, Débora, Marina, and all others), mother (you made all this possible), brother (I love you Jef), and daughters, Joy and Bibi, thank you so much. You are my inspiration. Chapel Hill, May 2006. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ………………………………………………...… 1 II. CLARICE LISPECTOR: FEMALE AWAKENINGS…...................................................16 A. Perto do coração selvagem [Near to the Wild Heart], A Paixão segundo G.H. [The Passion According to G.H.], and Água viva [The Stream of Life].………………...16 B. Historical and Literary Context ……………………………………………………...20 C. Perto do coração selvagem: Paths of Awareness.....……………………………..…...25 1. Joana and her Personal Quest(s) ……………………………………..……....25 2. Evil and Joana …………………………………………………..…………... 35 3. Yara-Lilith-Lídia ………………………………………......…………………38 4. Desire in Perto do coração selvagem ……..…………..…………………..….42 D. A Paixão Segundo G.H.: G.H.’s Re-Birth…….………......……………………..…...44 E. Água viva: Flow of Thoughts ……….………………...……………………………..56 1. The Writer, the Narrator, and the Style …........................................................57 2. Recurrent Symbols and Evolution …..……………………………………….58 F. A hora da estrela: The Subtle Strength of a Certain Macabéa …….………………….62 III. ISABEL ALLENDE AND WOMEN’S STRUGGLES FOR FAIR TREATMENT IN LATIN AMERICA …...………………………………………….…………...……...71 A. The Novels: Eva Luna, Hija de la fortuna [Daughter of Fortune], Retrato en sepia [Portrait in Sepia], and La casa de los espíritus [The House of the Spirits]………………………………………………………………………...............71 B. Eva Luna: A Colorful Portrait of Latin America …...…………………………..........74 vii C. Allende: Hija de la fortuna, Retrato en sepia, and La casa de los espíritus ………….84 1. Hija de la fortuna: a Latino Woman’s Journey in the Mid-Nineteenth Century …….…………….…………..……........…………...…84 2. Retrato en sepia: a Latin Woman at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ..........89 3. La casa de los espíritus: Four Generations of Twentieth-Century Chilean Women ………………..……………………………………………..…98 IV. MICHELLE CLIFF: WOMEN IN SEARCH OF IDENTITIES THEY WERE TAUGHT TO DESPISE …..………………….……………………..…………………113 A. Abeng and No Telephone to Heaven: Clare’s Journey and Shaping of Identity …...113 B. Abeng: the Blooming of a Jamaican Girl ......……………………………………….117 C. No Telephone to Heaven: Clare’s Teenage and Adult Years…………………….....128 D. Free Enterprise: Identity and the Fight for Human Rights ………………………….140 V. CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………... 155 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………….………………………………………………................162 viii CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS “This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing room.” Virginia Woolf1 “Genders can be neither true nor false, neither real nor apparent, neither original nor derived. As credible bearers of those attributes, however, genders can also be rendered thoroughly and radically incredible.” - Judith Butler2 Clarice Lispector, Isabel Allende, and Michelle Cliff are twentieth-century writers from three different cultural backgrounds. Lispector (1920-1977) was born into a Russian- Jewish family; she grew up in Brazil, becoming officially Brazilian as an adult. She traveled extensively around Europe while married to a diplomat; at that time she had already published her first novel and several short stories. Isabel Allende was born in Peru, grew up in Chile (where her family originated) and has lived abroad for most of her life, now residing in Southern California. Michelle Cliff was born in Jamaica, and grew up on that island and in the United States. She attended graduate school in England and now lives in the United States. These three women writers with such diverse backgrounds have written a great deal about women’s journeys in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Their work contains reflections on women’s conditions in their home countries and elsewhere. 1 Woolf 128. 2 Butler, Gender Trouble 141. Women struggle to balance their desires to care for others, to have positive relationships, and to seek knowledge with the need to claim their own identities. This dynamic lies at the center of Clarice Lispector’s Perto do coração selvagem [Near to the Wild Heart], A paixão segundo G.H. [The Passion According to G.H.], Água viva [The Stream of Life], and A hora da estrela [The Hour of the Star]; Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna, Hija de la fortuna [Daughter of Fortune], Retrato en sepia [Portrait in Sepia], and La casa de los espíritus [The House of the Spirits]; Michelle Cliff’s Abeng, No Telephone to Heaven, and Free Enterprise. This study investigates the work of the three novelists in relation to the manner in which some of the characters—protagonists or not—develop their identities. I am concerned with the ways through which identity is shaped. The process of identity formation involves issues such as gender, class, and race. More specifically, my point of view focuses on the study of how much the environment where the characters develop influences their formation. Due to the cultural background of each country, characters learn different values and fight for different causes. One of my main aims in doing this study is to draw attention to the fact that Latin America and the Caribbean have in fact many points of convergence in the ways that characters form their identities. Brazil is often left outside discourses on Latin America due to the fact that its language is not Spanish. The Caribbean also is usually dealt with separately from Latin America. It is important to foster dialogue among Latin American and Caribbean countries. This study is a corrective step in the direction of building such relationships. 2 The number of studies on Latin American and Caribbean women writers has flourished in the last few decades, although there are still few that include Brazilian authors.3 A few works compare Brazilian and Spanish American literature, such as Judith Payne and Earl E. Fitz’s Ambiguity and Gender in the New Novel of Brazil and Spanish America: a Comparative Assessment. The authors claim that some of Isabel Allende’s novels are examples of texts that redefine traditional gender roles and relationships, a phenomenon which they claim has long been noticeable in Brazilian narratives by women. They also maintain that Brazilian literary traditions differ considerably from Spanish American traditions (193), and cite Clarice Lispector as an outstanding writer.