Parody and irony

transgressive appropriation of the biblical text in “A paixão Segundo G.H.”, by Clarice Lispector

Abstract

It is common sense to identify theorists who dedicate themselves to the study of Clarice Lispector's work, especially in relation to the presence of some Western and Eastern religions in The Passion According to G.H. However, this article proposes to identify, particularly, the appropriation of the biblical text in this specific work, as well as the transgressive way, with rare exceptions, in which the narrator character of the novel uses this religious text, shamelessly subverting it through parody and irony. Therefore, the methodology is qualitative and is based on the use of theoretical and critical texts aiming at the method of data collection of the material selected for carrying out the textual analysis. Therefore, the attempt is to identify the most relevant biblical excerpts applied to the texture of the text and, in addition, to address how parody and irony compose it and how Lispector constructs her protagonist character G.H. and the literary narrative. Furthermore, in this novel, Lispector explores imaginary and subjective dimensions of the biblical text and, above all, provides the subject's place to the language that creates around itself a labyrinth whose final destination is found in its core, its interior. To this end, the authors used are: Antonio Candido (2009), Benedito Nunes (1969; 1973; 1995), Maria José Barbosa (2001), Rodrigo Guimarães (2010), Linda Hutcheon (1985; 2000), among others. The narrative initially revolves around the ritual of tidying up that the character performs in her apartment, and yet, in this one perceives the metaphor of pilgrimage and ascension of an introspective order. Therefore, in the maid's room, the first room to be organized, G.H. she is faced with a cockroach, an ancestral animal that connects and establishes an initiatory point for a long stage of reflection and flow of consciousness for the protagonist, as it is the beginning of a new time, a cycle of discoveries before the world and, above all, within herself.