The Hour of the Star

Macabéa buys and dons bright red lipstick after Olímpico breaks up with her. She feels privately heartbroken by Olímpico’s rejection but believes that she can’t afford the luxury of being sad. She therefore buys and dons the lipstick in an attempt to “give a party for herself” (53), which she hopes will eradicate her sadness. The lipstick therefore represents identity: It symbolizes the woman who Macabéa wants to be. She wants to be not only beautiful and showy but also confident and assured. When she puts on the lipstick, she imagines herself as Marilyn Monroe. She has always wanted to be as decadent and elegant as the movie stars and hopes that the lipstick might elevate her in this way. She’s therefore trying to alter her external appearance as a way to present an alternate version of herself to others. However, when Glória sees Macabéa wearing the lipstick, she laughs at her and makes fun of her, insisting that her “face [looks] like [she’s] possessed” and that she looks “like the kind of girl who goes with soldiers” (53). Glória’s derogatory remarks are slights against Macabéa’s identity. She’s ridiculing who Macabéa is and what she considers Macabéa’s pitiful attempts to be someone different.

Rodrigo is determined to write Macabéa’s story because he believes that doing so might uncover some fundamental truth about human life and existence. Macabéa’s story thus symbolizes meaning and purpose. He struggles to begin writing her story, however, because he’s afraid of what his writing process will uncover and because exploring Macabéa’s life and character on the page causes him physiological discomfort. At the same time, writing her story grants Rodrigo an inherent sense of meaning and purpose. He can’t ultimately control Macabéa’s fate or save her from death, but in writing her story he’s able to create life and therefore to make some sense of it. Furthermore, writing her story grants him the opportunity to “writ[e] about reality” (9). He has always felt that “reality [is] so beyond [him]” (9). However, Macabéa’s story lets Rodrigo access the rawness of human life and experience. In this way, her tale compels him to look at life’s difficulties in new ways and thus expose the complex dichotomies of being alive.