The Smallest Woman in the World

“Aside from disease, infectious vapors from the waters, insufficient food and roving beasts, the greatest risk facing the scant Likoualas are the savage Bantus, a threat that surrounds them in the silent air as on the morning of battle. The Bantus hunt them with nets, as they do monkeys. And eat them. Just like that: they hunt them with nets and Eat them. That tiny race of people, always retreating and retreating, eventually took up residence in the heart of Africa, where the lucky explorer would discover them.”

The fact that the Likoualas are hunted and eaten by the Bantus is presented as a shocking detail in the notes of the French explorer. However, the cultural cannibalism that the explorer uses to photograph and present Little Flower’s image in the Sunday newspaper represents another kind of objectification. The use of an analogy between the Likoualas and animals being hunted reflects the racial stereotypes that inform the explorer’s view of the world he depicts.

“Right there was a woman the gluttony of the most exquisite dream could never have imagined. That was when the explorer declared, shyly and with a delicacy of feeling of which his wife would never have judged him capable: ‘You are Little Flower.’ At that moment Little Flower scratched herself where a person doesn’t scratch. The explorer—as if receiving the highest prize for chastity to which a man, who had always been so idealistic, dared aspire—the explorer, seasoned as he was, averted his eyes.”

The use of hyperbole and irony enhances the portrayal of the French explorer and his interactions with Little Flower. The description of Little Flower as “the gluttony of the most exquisite dream” alludes to the theme of cannibalism and objectification. The explorer’s declaration, after being ironically characterized as lacking “delicacy” from the point of view of his wife, juxtaposes the grandiosity of the moment with the humorous detail of Little Flower scratching herself in a way perceived as inappropriate, adding a touch of absurdity. The explorer’s reaction of averting his eyes further emphasizes the contrast between his social training and the unexpected reality before him, as well as his inability to interact with the tribes he is studying on terms other than his own.

“That Sunday, in an apartment, a woman, seeing Little Flower’s picture in the open newspaper, didn’t want to look a second time ‘because it pains me so.’”

The woman’s reluctance to view the photo effectively captures the distance between the two worlds. The first vignette is ambiguous; it is unclear whether the woman reacts due to a deeper layer of empathy—and perhaps an unsettling recognition of shared vulnerability—or because she sees Little Flower as a helpless, inferior being in need of saving.

“In another apartment a lady felt such perverse tenderness for the African woman’s smallness that—prevention being better than cure—no one should ever leave Little Flower alone with the lady’s tenderness. Who knows to what darkness of love affection can lead.”

The use of paradoxical language, such as “perverse tenderness” and “darkness of love,” highlights the visceral and unsettling nature of the woman’s feelings of desire toward Little Flower. Desire as a dehumanizing emotion is an important theme in the short story, foreshadowed here, in the second vignette.

“In another house a five-year-old girl, seeing the picture and hearing the commentary, became alarmed. In that household of adults, this girl had up till now been the smallest of human beings. And, if that was the source of the best caresses, it was also the source of this first fear of love’s tyranny.”

The text suggests that the girl instinctively understands, from a gendered point of view, the power dynamics within her household, suggesting that objectification creates both need and fear on the part of the more vulnerable person in the relationship. The girl, therefore, is not focused on the image of Little Flower in the way the other readers of the newspaper are. Instead, she is focused on her own condition, which she experiences both as “caresses,” which she does not want to lose to someone else, and “tyranny.”

“It was in another house that a clever boy had a clever idea: ‘Mama, what if I put that little African lady on Paulinho’s bed while he’s sleeping? when he wakes up, he’ll be so scared, right! he’ll scream, when he sees her sitting on the bed! And then we could play so much with her! we could make her our toy, right!’”

The boy is ironically depicted, through repetition, as having a “clever idea,” which is to use Little Flower as an object or a toy, emphasizing her dehumanization and objectification. The passage raises questions about power dynamics, the potential for exploitation, and the blurred lines between innocence and cruelty in the young boy’s perception of Little Flower. The gender perspective is important in this quote as it expresses what other male characters, such as Marcel Pretre and the father in the sixth vignette, might be thinking.

“His mother was at that moment curling her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, and she recalled something a cook had told her about her time at the orphanage. Having no dolls to play with […] the sly little girls had concealed another girl’s death from the nun. They hid the corpse in a wardrobe until the nun left, and played with the dead girl, giving her baths and little snacks, punishing her just so they could kiss her afterward, consoling her. This is what the mother recalled in the bathroom, and she lowered her pendulous hands, full of hairpins. And considered the cruel necessity of loving. She considered the malignity of our desire to be happy. Considered the ferocity with which we want to play. And how many times we will kill out of love.”

Lispector uses stream of consciousness to depict the mother’s empathy with the objectified African woman, as well as her deep understanding of the contradictory nature of love and desire. It exposes the human potential for both tenderness and cruelty. The notion of play, while suggesting joy and innocence, is associated with death and the lengths one may go to in order to fulfill desires that seem harmless. The dehumanization necessary to possess someone is emphasized by comparing Little Flower to a corpse; as such, the morbid nature of the readers’ desire and curiosity about Little Flower is laid bare through exaggeration.

“Then, looking in the bathroom mirror, the mother made a deliberately refined and polite smile, placing, between that face of hers with its abstract lines and Little Flower’s crude face, the insurmountable distance of millennia. But, after years of practice, she knew this would be one of those Sundays on which she’d have to conceal from herself the anxiety, the dream, and millennia lost.”

The mother’s measured smile in the mirror signifies an attempt to distance herself from Little Flower’s world. The mirror is an important symbol, used in this vignette to allow the mother to gaze both within and away from herself. The juxtaposition between the mother’s refined face in the mirror and Little Flower’s face in the newspaper prompts the mother to widen the distance even more. However, the mother is shown as being aware of the complexities of the situation and the repercussions of being objectified.

“In another house, beside a wall, they were engaged in the excited task of measuring Little Flower’s eighteen inches with a ruler. And that was where, delighted, they gasped in shock: she was even smaller than the keenest imagination could conceive. In each family member’s heart arose, nostalgic, the desire to have that tiny and indomitable thing for himself, that thing spared from being eaten, that permanent source of charity.”

The act of measuring Little Flower’s size symbolizes the desire to quantify and possess the unknown. The family’s approach to the photo is similar to the French explorer’s approach to the real-life person. Since smallness is the only aspect that the family focuses on (much like the explorer), possession is the only aspect of desire that they experience. Having escaped being eaten in the African jungle, Lispector shows that Little Flower is nevertheless being devoured by a middle-class family, who can only perceive her through their racial prejudices.

“Methodically the explorer peered closely at the little belly of the smallest full-grown human being. In that instant the explorer, for the first time since he’d met her, instead of feeling curiosity or exaltation or triumph or the scientific spirit, the explorer felt distress. Because the smallest woman in the world was laughing. She was laughing, warm, warm. Little Flower was delighting in life. The rare thing herself was having the ineffable sensation of not yet having been eaten.”

The symbol of the Russian dolls or the box within a box is used several times in the story. Here, it signifies that the explorer’s curiosity has no limits. Similar to the colonial explorers, the ambition to find an even more rare, more extraordinary, more resourceful object for personal gain is infinite. This attitude is contrasted with Little Flower’s warmth and spontaneity. Her joy is a simple one—being alive and safe—a joy that the explorer cannot understand.

“It was that the rare thing herself felt her breast warmed with what might be called Love. She loved that yellow explorer. If she knew how to speak and told him she loved him, he’d puff up with vanity. Vanity that would shrivel when she added that she also loved the explorer’s ring very much and that she loved the explorer’s boots very much. And when he deflated in disappointment, Little Flower wouldn’t understand why. For, not in the slightest, would her love for the explorer—one might even say her ‘profound love,’ because, having no other resources, she was reduced to profundity—for not in the slightest would her profound love for the explorer be devalued by the fact that she also loved his boots.”

The repetition of “very much” accentuates Little Flower’s simple yet profound love, juxtaposing the superficiality of the explorer’s vanity and the fact that one can love even material things in a nonmaterialistic way. The explorer’s ring and boots symbolize material possessions and status for the explorer. For Little Flower, they signify a joy in sharing the world through objects and sensations.

“The explorer tried to smile back at her, without knowing exactly to what abyss his smile responded, and then got flustered as only a big man gets flustered. He pretended to adjust his explorer helmet, blushing bashfully. He turned a lovely color, his own, a greenish pink, like that of a lime at dawn. He must have been sour.”

Clarice Lispector employs catachresis and vivid imagery to explore the explorer’s emotional response to Little Flower’s laughter and to highlight the contrast between his intentions and how he feels. Not being able to connect to the world he explores, Marcel Pretre tries to fake a smile. The vivid imagery of the explorer blushing and turning a “greenish pink,” like “a lime at dawn” adds a touch of humor and emphasizes Pretre’s discomfort at interacting with a fully human pygmy woman.

“Little Flower answered ‘yes.’ That it was very good to have a tree to live in, her own, her very own. For—and this she didn’t say, but her eyes went so dark that they said it—for it is good to possess, good to possess, good to possess.”

This quote is the only moment when Little Flower speaks in the short story. Lispector shows that Little Flower is also capable of responding and possessing—all human things that she had been deprived of when objectified by the explorer and newspaper readers. The repetition of the phrase “good to possess” emphasizes that Little Flower’s desire can also cover the human range of emotions, from fulfillment to devouring through dark intensity.