Hannah Gillman

Reading Hunger and Exhaustion in Clarice Lispector’s A Hora de Estrela

Introduction

Reading hunger and exhaustion in clarice lispector’s a hora de estrela. Explore Clarice Lispector's "A Hora de Estrela" through Marx's metabolic rift and Social Reproduction Theory, revealing women's peripheralization and capitalism's unsustainable nature.

Abstract

Coined by Karl Marx in Capital (1867), the “metabolic rift” or “ecological rift” model describes the cycle of extraction, exportation and exhaustion present in agricultural production and, in particular, highlights the unsustainability of this ecologically-unequal exchange. This article integrates world-literary theory, Social Reproduction Theory, and the model of the metabolic rift to explore how Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star (1977) illuminates the peripheralization of women within the capitalist mode of production. The increasing pressure on women to be producers causes contradictions in the protagonist’s materiality and exposes the pressures placed on writing—especially women's writing—to meet the expectations of literary production. The novel’s commodity consumption, crisis of social reproduction, and meta-narrational features become windows to view the women’s work and women’s narratives which simultaneously sustain and are exploited by the capitalist mode of production. By connecting these various threads, I suggest the ignored labor of social reproduction under capitalism signals a crisis of consumption and a loss of capitalistic futurity, alerting readers to the unsustainable nature of the current capitalist mode of production.

Review

The article "Reading Hunger and Exhaustion in Clarice Lispector’s A Hora de Estrela" presents an ambitious and timely intervention into contemporary literary and critical discourse. Its central contribution lies in its innovative integration of world-literary theory, Social Reproduction Theory, and the metabolic rift model to re-evaluate Clarice Lispector’s seminal novel, *A Hora da Estrela*. By framing Lispector’s work through these interconnected theoretical lenses, the author promises to illuminate the profound and often overlooked connections between ecological unsustainability, economic exploitation, and the peripheralization of women within global capitalism. This interdisciplinary approach offers a fresh perspective on a widely studied text, positioning it as a powerful commentary on the systemic pressures that govern both human and environmental well-being. The methodology outlined in the abstract effectively articulates how these complex theoretical frameworks will be applied to the novel. The article proposes to explore how the increasing pressures on women to be producers create material contradictions for the protagonist, Macabéa, thereby exposing the analogous pressures placed on women’s writing within the broader literary market. Focusing on the novel's themes of commodity consumption, its portrayal of a crisis in social reproduction, and its meta-narrational qualities, the author intends to demonstrate how Lispector's text functions as a critical lens through which to examine the invisible labor and narratives of women—labor and narratives that are simultaneously essential to and exploited by the capitalist system. This careful attention to both textual detail and theoretical underpinnings suggests a robust and nuanced analysis. The proposed conclusion, which links the ignored labor of social reproduction to a crisis of consumption and a "loss of capitalistic futurity," is particularly compelling. This argument extends beyond a mere textual analysis, positioning Lispector's novel as a vital warning about the inherent unsustainability of the current capitalist mode of production. While the abstract strongly outlines the argument's scope and theoretical foundation, a full development would benefit from further elaboration on how "hunger and exhaustion" are specifically *read* as manifestations of the metabolic rift and social reproductive crisis in the protagonist's experience, providing concrete examples that bridge the theoretical to the textual. Overall, this article promises to make a significant contribution to Lispector studies, feminist literary criticism, and ecocritical theory, offering a powerful argument for recognizing the entangled crises of capitalism.

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