The story by Clarice Lispector “Love” demonstrates Anna, as an ordinary woman, who is sick and tired with her likely destiny full of grey colors. It concerns, first of all, her routine life in which she is just an element of existence without any destination for something more than just life. In other words, the drama of this character is implied into her burden of family life, where she is in despair for undergoing through the reality of having children and a husband.
She is in constant search for herself, for her destination in life. In this respect, there is a point on her role as an ordinary mom. Nonetheless, Anna is not so ordinary; she is seeking for the real things which interested her indeed. Her routine life is pointed out with the fact that she does not even notice the changes around her. It is seen in the following excerpt: “Her brisk conversations with the electricity man were growing, the water filling the tank was growing, her children were growing, the table was growing with food” (Lispector 38)…
As for me, Anna is a reflection of a woman without standpoints in life. It does not mean that she is bad or unconscious, but her life became trivial and purposeless for the time. She was about to find the deepest nature or roots of the things (Lispector 38). However, her feeling for love and goodness according to other people is highlighted on the example which was rather spontaneous for her.
The title of the story straightforwardly outlines the main idea of it. In fact, the urge for better life and her place in it was the real objective which Anna intentionally and unintentionally “hunted” in life. She feared life and was in despair because of the drama of the society and things which surrounded her. Anna felt horror seeming so huge for her. She was confused with the reality of life. Thus, as far as I know, the antipode of horror and fear is love.
Love was the only means for her convenience in life. Her desires touched upon the versatile and powerful feeling of love. Here the concept of love and devotion to people is disclosed at the moment when she met a blind man. Her drudgery and routine life turned off her from the main values and precious objectivity of life.
Anna was directly affected by the meeting with a blind man, because of her rational understanding for a moment of an absurd which was apparent on the example of a blind man within strong man. Anna was shocked and frightened just for a moment: “Oh! But she loved the blind man,” she thought with tears in her eyes” (Lispector 46).
I feel a mere feeling of understanding the situation with Anna because it is really hard to see when helplessness of people seems to be imperceptible. Life itself appeared to her senseless and uninteresting because it cannot be transformed or directed toward the good side of the sum of things. Blind man showed her symbolical nature of human beings and of hers, particularly:
The perception of an absence of law came so unexpectedly that Anna clutched the seat in front of her as if she might fall off the tram, as if things might be overturned with the same calm they had possessed when order reigned (Lispector 41).
Being in the botanical garden, Anna felt peace and beauty of the trees and plants growing there. Her state of soul seemed to be peaceful at that moment. She was shocked a little bit earlier, but admired afterwards: “Everything seemed strange, much too gentle, much too great” (Lispector 43). Anna understood at that place the horrible coloring of life. She felt distorted and confused of her being in the world. Nothing could stop her thinking about the cruelty and disorientation of people and harmony and splendor of the nature.
As I think, the garden was a background for making a conclusion about the value of life: “The garden was so beautiful that she feared hell” (Lispector). I see her despair in the antithesis between beautiful garden and horrible life. Here the absurdness along with the rationale of life arises in the feelings coming from the inner dimensions of Anna’s essence.
Coming to her senses, Anna understood that it was night, it was dark and the idea of her devotion to the family dominated her. She was afraid of her children, first of all: “But when she remembered the children, before whom she now felt guilty, she straightened up with a cry of pain” (Lispector 44). Garden made her emphasize the real objectives for her living, and when coming back home she understood that it is better to hurry up and to protect her family and be protected in turn: “Her compassion for the blind man was as fierce as anguish but the world seemed hers, dirty, perishable, hers” (Lispector 44). At home Anna understood that “the world started up again around her” (Lispector 41). I feel that the story ends up with the happy ending.
Works Cited
Lispector, Clarice. Family ties. Houston: University of Texas Press, 1984.