Behind the thought: the irrational writing of Objeto Gritante and Água viva, by Clarice Lispector

Abstract

The work Água viva, originally called Objeto gritante, was thoroughly modified until its final version was published. Clarice’s concern with language, however, remains, and there appears to be in the description of an unnamed “behind the thought” a critique of logocentrism. Thus, the present article seeks to analyze what in the work seems to allude to a way of thinking about life, language, and animal beings that escapes from the rationalization principle and gives a new meaning to the term “animality”. Based on issues of the animal raised by Derrida (2006), the concept of perspectivism given by Viveiros de Castro (1996) and the analyses of the writer’s work made by Sammer (2020) and Roncador (2002), the article will also analyze what in Clarice’s writing seems to glimpse at a particular relationship between wo- men and animals, passing also through the concept of écriture féminine as coined by Helène Cixous (1976).