De profundis - Experiências do litoral (presença do espaço arquétipo no romance Perto do coração selvagem, de Clarice Lispector)

Abstract

The literary figurations of private spaces – territories of intimacy – have been reiteratedly revisited by the critical fortune of Clarice Lispector’s work. However, the public spaces in the writer’s novels, short stories and chronicles are also often represented as potentially promising sites to the development of individuation processes of characters and narrators. Pavements, streets, corners, large avenues, trams and parks are privileged settings to the exercise of different forms of subjectivation and sociability, mainly because the chances for the subject to face the varied forms of incarnation of alterity are increased in them. Arquetypical spaciality by excellence, the sea appears in short autobiographical-based texts and has an important role in Clarice Lispector’s premiere novel, Perto do coração selvagem, published in 1943. Favouring the Psychoanalysis/Literary Studies interface, the essay is based on Melanie Klein’s theoretical writings in order to carry out an interpretative reading of the maritime images in the book, linking them to the process of formation and construction of the subjectivity of the protagonist Joana.