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Cannibalistic Perspectives:
Paradoxical Duplication and the mise
en abyme in Clarice Lispector's "A
menor mulher do mundo"1
Michael Colvin
If the center of a narration is defined by the narrator's point of view, consequently, the embedded point of view establishes degrees of duplication. In
Clarice Lispector's "A menor mulher do mundo," the narrator's ambulatory
perspective, shifting seven times, complicates the embedding technique by
constantly questioning the notion of center.2 The narrator's subsequent
points of view displace the center and, by the end of the story, replace it. The
unfixed perspective, a perspective simultaneously spawning and framing a series of critical points of view, calls attention to the self-consciously regenerative although cannibalistic nature of Lispector's narrative structure. I shall
demonstrate that the narrative structure of paradoxical duplication is a reflection of the leitmotifs of cannibalism and regeneration in "A menor mulher do mundo." Lispector presents the latent desire of the progeny to devour
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ISSN 0024-7413, ?
2005
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its progenitor just as the smallest frame of the narration devours the apparent
largest frame, in which it is embedded.
The key to the narrative structure of paradoxical duplication in "Amenor mulher do mundo" can be found in the statement that the secret goal of
our existence is to escape being devoured (94). By assuming the aporetic
form of the Ouroboros, the narration avoids being devoured by embedding
those frames that embed it.3 The final Chinese box contained within other
boxes encloses the boxes that once contained it. The theme of cannibalism in
Lispector's short story serves the function of drawing our attention to the
paradoxical structure of the narration, by showing that Pequena Flor, always
the prey of cannibals, is capable of preying on the cannibals. Marcel Pretre
discovers Pequena Flor for a world that wishes to devour her, yet she wants to
devour Pretre.There are seven allusions to cannibalistic urges felt by characters in the short story. The first six focus on Pequena Flor as object of the
cannibalistic appetite. These urges represent the characters'desire to contain
Pequena Flor: to contain the smallest woman in the world. I shall demonstrate that the coincidence between the title, "Amenor mulher do mundo,"
and its quasi-anonymous reference to the Pygmy woman constitutes the
short story's self-referentiality.By calling Pequena Flor the smallest woman/
mature human being, variations on the story's title, the narrator signals her
as a repetition or reflection of the literature, and thus problematizes the typology of the mise en abyme. Consequently, the other characters'latent desire to devour Pequena Flor translates as the desire to contain within their
narration "A menor mulher do mundo," the narrative entity that encloses
them. Pequena Flor expresses the seventh cannibalistic urge; the object of
her hunger is Marcel Pretre. Her desire towards Pretre reestablishes the narrative order of the story by positioning the smallest woman in the world as
the outer frame. The seeming autonomy of the final vignette, a vignette that
attempts independence from its position as an interior frame, however complicates the narrative order by turning the page and thus ending the story.
Below, I shall study each of the expressions of cannibalistic urge to understand its reflection of the paradoxical narrative structure of "Amenor mulher do mundo."
First it is necessary to outline the structure of the embedding that constitutes paradoxical or aporetic duplication in "A menor mulher do mundo."
Neide Luziade Rezende studies the problem of the other while confronting a
series of paradoxeswithin the context of narrative embedding.4 She believes
that Lispector's protagonist, the French explorer Marcel Pretre's encounter
with the Pygmy woman, Pequena Flor, is the matrix of the narration or the
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However, because her turning the page signals our story's ending, she becomes the largest box, enclosing the boxes that enclose her. Thus the apparent interior narrative frames assume the exterior position subordinating the
exterior narrative frames to an interior position. In this study I propose to
understand the aporetic nature of Lispector's narration by using Dallenbach'stypology of mises on abyme to show that what de Rezende interprets as
type one and type two duplication-or the transition from simple mimesis
to infinite reproduction-is subverted by the final vignette, which results in
a paradoxical duplication.
I concur with de Rezende when she classifies Pretre's encounter with
Pequena Flor as the apparent exterior frame of the story (52-53). However,
she simplifies the narrativestructure of this multi-layered story when she includes Pretre'sarticle and photograph of Pequena Flor in the same exterior
frame, thus making the urban vignettes narratives framed within that matrix. Marcel'sencounter with Pequena Flor is one frame of the story, serving
as, but not limited to being the exterior or matrix. The explorer's notes and
his photograph, which appear within his narration and almost independent
of it, constitute the first interior frame.8The seven women/families' reading
the newspaper article serves an extradiegetic function, engaging the interior
frame on a critical level. Yet, these characters' existence in Lispector's narrative is parasitic; their thoughts are products of their contact with Pretre's
article and the photograph of Pequena Flor. As Pretre writes "the smallest
woman in the world,"his readers read and criticize "the smallest woman in
the world."The seven shifting perspectives are contained within the frame of
the newspaper, and their identities in Lispector's story are limited to those
thoughts provoked by the photograph of Pequena Flor.9Yet, simultaneously,
these characters frame the article reporting Pretre'sdiscovery, as they criticize it; they are confined to the contents of the newspaper article and they
confine the newspaper article, while they exist in horizontal succession.
Dallenbach outlines the ways in which narrative embedding achieves
paradoxical duplication: "by the injection into the diegesis (a) of the title of
the book itself, or (b) of an equivalent expression; or (c) the inclusion of the
book in a reflective sequence that substitutes it" (112). In Lispector'sstory, the
transition from infinite duplication to paradoxical duplication is best illustrated by the mise en abyme of the pregnant pigmy woman: "entre os menores pigmeus do mundo estava o menor dos menores" (87). Pequena Flor is
an emblematic repetition of an unknown infinity. However, the quote above
does not merely signal the infinite duplication of the Chinese box. Because it
reiterates an "equivalent expression"of the title of Lispector's story, the duplication engulfs the short story (Dallenbach 112).Pequena Flor'sanonymity,
prior to Pretre'snaming her, is an echoing of the story's title. The narrator
exploits the innocuous title phrase "the smallest in the world"to referback to
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the work that s/he is narrating. Marcel Pretre, a man of the world ("homem
do mundo"), stumbles upon the smallest pygmies in the world ("os menores
pigmeus do mundo") and, within the tribe, he finds the smallest woman in
the world ("a menor mulher do mundo") who carries in her womb the
smallest black baby in the world ("o bebe preto menor do mundo") (87, 87,
88, 93). The repetition of the title, or of its equivalents, makes the readerconscious of his/ her own role: a role reflected in that of the women/ families in
each vignette.
The photograph of Pequena Flor links the implied reader of Lispector's
story to the interdiegetic readersof Pretre'sarticle and therefore is key to our
understanding of "A menor mulher do mundo"'s paradoxical narrative
structure:
A fotografiade PequenaFlorfoi publicadano suplementocoloridodos jornaisde domingo,onde coubeem tamanhonaturalenroladanum pano,com
a barrigaem estadoadiantado.O narizchato,a carapreta,os olhos fundos,os
(89)
pes espalmados."
Although the narratorinforms us that Pequena Flor appears in the color supplement she is not allotted any color in the description of her photograph. In
fact, in no part of the narration is she attributed color. The monochromatic
yet color photograph therefore is a faithful reproduction of the Pygmy since
it mimics the narrator'scolorless description of Pequena Flor. Furthermore,
that Pequena Flor's photograph appears in actual size affirms the affinity
between the reader of "Amenor mulher do mundo" and the readers of the
article in the Sunday paper. Because they hold before themselves a twodimensional, yet proportional and chromatically accurate reproduction of
Pequena Flor, and because their criticisms do not reveal concern for the accompanying text, the interdiegetic readers are also readers, in a sense, of "A
menor mulher do mundo."
The relationship between the description of the photograph, the smallest
woman in the world (the character in Clarice Lispector's story), the title of
Lispector's short story and the reactions of the characters in the urban vignettes confirms the paradoxical nature of the duplications in the narrative.
In their acts of criticizing the work that gave them birth, the protagonists of
the vignettes leap out of their roles as characters, products of the author.
They transcend their positions as embedded characters whose existence is
made convenient by the role they play in one of the apparent inner frames of
the embedded narratives. And some characterswho share this position take
a more active role in overcoming the subordinate role of character by symbolically trying to become the outer frame not only of the narration, but also
of Lispector'sstory, by containing the smallest woman in the world.
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We shall start with Marcel Pretre, as his perspective is the first presented
our
narrator,and thus appears to be the outer frame. Pretre'sobjective is
by
clearly traced in the first pages of the story: to arrive at a final conclusion
(88). He believes that he has found the smallest human being in the world
amongst the smallest people in the world. His search for limits-definition,
center, essence-establishes his position as subject, subordinating the other
perspectives presented by the narrator.As the exterior frame, Pretre defines
what will occupy the interior frames: the Likouala Pygmies and, within that
frame, Pequena Flor. This framing, however, is subverted by the discovery of
Pequena Flor's fetus, which displaces Pretre's center. Pequena Flor's pregnancy problematizes Pretre'snotion of limits and the accuracy of his claim
to have found the smallest human specimen. The smallest human specimen
is not yet visible. The suggested infinity of an unknown smaller human specimen throws Pretre's discovery into an abyss. There may not be an essence
and therefore Pequena Flor does not occupy the furthest interior frame,
rather a frame that, like Pretre'sown, subordinates other frames. Pretre'sdiscovery of such vertiginous infinity marks the first cannibalistic urge in the
short story. Lispector writes: "Nos tepidos humores silvestres, que arredondam cedo as frutas e lhes dao uma quase intoleravel docura ao paladar, ela
estava gravida"(87). The pending infinity of the fetus, and what it may contain, and what that may contain, is contrary to Pretre'sempirical approach to
science. Pretremust arriveat the essence of what is tangible. His comparison
of Pequena Flor's distended belly to the "unbearablesweetness"of ripe fruit
manifests his urge to contain the essence (87). The urge forges Pretre'sstatus
as the outer frame and his capacity to devour Pequena Flor within that
frame. Yet every time he refers to the Pygmy woman as "the smallest woman
in the world,"her status as a reiteration of Lispector'stitle subordinates Pretre's perspective and contains him within its frame.
The first cannibalistic urge is echoed in the second, which also appears at
a key moment, when Pretremarvels at the rarity of his discovery.He searches
for an equivalent to express the unique character of his find but rejects all:
"seu cora,ao bateu porque esmeralda nenhuma e tao rara. Nem os ensinamentos dos sabios da India sao tao raros. Nem o homem mais rico do mundo
ja pos olhos sobre tanta estranha graca"(89). Pretre abandons his lists of inferior comparisons at the very moment when he baptizes the Pygmy as Pequena Flor. His last comparison settles on the gustatory sense: "Ali estava
uma mulher que a gulodice do mais fino sonho jamais pudera imaginar"
(89). The coincidence between the Portuguese word for dream and an "intolerably sweet"pastry, resembling a custard-filled doughnut, is not fortuitous
(87, 89). The metaphor's intention to awaken the gustatory sense, by exploiting the double meaning of the word "sonho" is confirmed by the substantive
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autonomous of it. The child's mischief reminds the mother of a story that
the family's cook told her of her days at an orphanage. Lispectorwrites:
Nao tendo bonecacom que brincar,e a maternidadeja pulsandoterrivelno
coraqaodas6rfas,as meninassabidashaviamescondidoda freiraa mortede
uma dasgarotas.Guardaramo cadavernum armarioate a freirasair,e brincaramcom a meninamorta,deram-lhebanhose comidinhas,puseram-nade
castigosomenteparadepoispoderbeija-la,consolando-a.(91)
The embedded story reminds the mother of her own reproduction as she
contemplates her child in evolution: "Assim olhou ela, com muita atencao
e um orgulho inconfortavel, aquele menino que ja estava sem os dois dentes
da frente, a evolucao, a evolucao se fazendo, dente caindo para nascer o que
melhor morde" (91-2). The mother focuses on her child's missing front teeth
and his capacity for ferocity. His evolution yields to violent tendencies and
latent cannibalistic urges associated with biting. The boy's mischievous behavior has a dark side that is exposed while he schemes to make Pequena Flor
his toy. The mother observes her child with horror, awarethat she has created
the potential cannibal. Upon noticing the latent savageryof her son, the apparent animal link between her child and Pequena Flor, the mother resolves
to disguise her son's nature by dressing him up in a new suit. By identifying
her son with Pequena Flor, the mother must also identify herself with that
colorless/ dark figure "escuracomo um macaco"(92). She looks at her reflection in the mirror, taking note of her defined lines in contrast to the natural
fluidity of Pequena Flor's face, thus establishing a distance between herself
and the Pygmy woman.
De Rezende comments on the importance of the mirror in this episode as
it is the space in which the "'eu' se duplica" (57). The mirror calls our attention to the apparent infinite duplication of the scene and at the same time reiterates the embedded relationship between Lispector's short story, Pretre's
discovery, the newspaper article and photograph, the reactions of the urban
families and the remembered story of the children in the orphanage. However,by looking in the mirror and rejecting the image of the smallest woman
in the world, the mother symbolically transcends her position as a mere interior frame of the narration. Her rejection, by establishing an "insurmountable
distance of millenniums" between herself and the smallest woman in the
world, signals the mother as an interdiegetic critic of "Amenor mulher do
mundo" (92).
The mother's critical gesture, both towards the figure of the Pygmy
woman, and, by its association with the short story's title, towards Lispector's writing, of which she is a part, is echoed in the subsequent embedded
narratives.The criticism of the smallest woman in the world, not just as the
figure who appears in the newspaper, but also as an emblem of the printed
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word that contains that criticism is most evident in the final embedded
episodes. The motif of the newspaper calls our attention to the suggested
duplication of Lispector's short story within Pretre's article: the photo of
"a menor mulher do mundo" as an "injection [of the story's title] into the
diegesis" (Dallenbach
112).
When the father of the family, irritatedby the other family members' awe
towards Pretre'sphotograph, rustles behind the newspaper he reminds us of
the written text. He draws our attention to his act of reading the smallest
woman in the world-Pretre's photograph-as a reflection of our act of
reading the story by Lispector.The fatherturns the page of the newspaper definitively: "viraa pagina do jornal definitivamente,"a movement that presages
the old woman's act of closing the newspaper with determination: "[fecha] o
jornal com decisao" (92, 96). In both cases, the characters'utterances-after
the newspaper article is out of sight-show off their autonomy from Pretre's
article and Lispector'sliteraryproduction. The critical gesture of turning the
page that contains the smallest woman in the world equals a closing of the
book that contains "Amenor mulher do mundo."Thus the father and the old
woman of the last two embedded urban vignettes attempt autonomy from
their positions as embedded products of the apparent greater scheme of infinite duplication. The nature of this duplication is paradoxical.By achieving
such independence and turning the page on the smallest woman in the world,
the charactersmanage to contain, on a symbolic level, the narration that has
produced them.
The end of the penultimate embedded segment is announced with an
ironic transition from the ambulatory perspectives of the urban families to
that of the narrator.The narrator seems to laugh at the notion of otherness
presented by Pretre and confirmed by the families' fascination with and repulsion by the photograph of Pequena Flor: "E a pr6pria coisa rara"(93).
Thus the paradoxical duplication is further problematized. If the embedded
characters' revulsion towards the smallest woman in the world constitutes
an interdiegetic criticism of Lispector's homonymous short story, then the
implied narrator'sironic dismissal of those characters'reactions manifests a
criticism of that criticism. The narratoruses Pretre'sethnocentric expression
"a coisa rara"to introduce the episode of Pequena Flor's perspective. Pequena Flor's point of view proves to be rather common: anything but rare
when compared to Pretre'sand his readers'perspectives.
The smallest woman in the world also expresses cannibalistic urges and
the desire to possess: "era muito bom ter uma arvore para morar, sua, sua
mesmo [...] pois e bom possuir, e bom possuir, e bom possuir" (95). By
transferring the point of view to Pequena Flor, this episode further complicates the structure of infinite duplication. The object, Pequena Flor,becomes
the subject. By exposing her capacity for perspective, the narrator exposes
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the Chinese box, its reflection of Pequena Flor's relation to her fetus and the
presence of the mirror in the aforementioned vignette all appear to serve the
narrative structure of the story. However, the organization of the narrative
perspective-moving from Pretreto the urban vignettes to Pequena Flor and
back to one urban vignette-disrupts the neatly contained embedding technique suggested by infinite duplication. Rather, its order contradicts such a
structure. The relationship between the embedding perspectives to the embedded episodes is paradoxical. The embedded narratives embed the perspectives that contained them. Lispector'sleitmotifs of cannibalism and regeneration serve this aporetic mise en abyme.
Furthermore, the inevitable association between Pequena Flor and the
title of Lispector's short story constantly draws our attention to the narrative's self-referentiality:"Amenor mulher do mundo" ("The SmallestWoman
in the World"),the story, contains Pretre'snewspaper article about the smallest woman in the world. The article provokes reactions to and criticisms of
the smallest woman in the world. And the final reaction, of the old woman,
closes the book on the smallest woman in the world. The ultimate critical
gesture achieves, for the old woman, symbolic autonomy from the structure
of infinite duplication and, consequently, devours the short story that appeared to be its most exterior frame.
Notes
1. Lispector,Clarice.La?osdefamilia. Rio de Janeiro:FranciscoAlvesEditora,
1993.
2. JudithRosenberg
remarkson the changein perspective:"Thenarrationshifts
to variousurbanfamilieswho, upon seeingthe photographof LittleFlower,begin,
likePretre,to react,observe,andmeasureher"(71).
3. Dallenbachrefersto the "Ouroboros"-the snakebiting its own tale- as an
emblem of paradoxical duplication and self-embedding (112).
Colvin
95
Works Cited
Dallenbach, Lucien. TheMirrorin the Text.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
Freitas,Iacyr Anderson. "'A menor mulher do mundo' e outros lacos."Minas Gerais,
suplemento literdrio 23 (199o): 6 -7.