34 pages • 1 hour read
Clarice LispectorThe Smallest Woman in the World
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Monstrous Desire and Dehumanization
The story connects desire with cannibalism and dehumanization to reveal the darker aspects of human nature, whereby the unique and unfamiliar become objects of desire to satisfy personal curiosities or fulfill societal expectations. Monstrous desire can be seen as distorted and excessive, often driven by curiosity, sensationalism, and a craving for power and control. In the story, this desire is exemplified by the readers of the Sunday newspaper and Marcel Pretre.
The readers are drawn to Little Flower’s small stature and perceive her as a spectacle, an anomaly to be observed and consumed. There is a connection between the monstrous desire (often represented in the story as a form of “love”) of the Western subjects who come into contact with Little Flower and the cannibalism of the Bantu tribe, whose members hunt Little Flower’s pygmy tribe. The description of cannibalism focuses on the consumption of another human being as a shocking element: “The Bantus hunt them with nets, as they do monkeys. And eat them. Just like that: they hunt them with nets and Eat them” (166). Since these facts are presented as part of the French explorer’s research, they contain his point of view. The repetition of the words “eat them” and the capitalization of “Eat” in the last instance emphasizes the strangeness of this fact from a Western perspective.
Throughout the story, the narrator returns to the devouring and dehumanizing aspects of the desire for the different and unfamiliar. Although Marcel Pretre and the Sunday-paper readers do not hunt Little Flower and her tribe to eat her, there is a cultural cannibalism that can be observed in the French explorer’s desire to classify and collect data for his own use. The act of photographing and presenting, in a decontextualized form, the life-size photo of an object of “research” as a curiosity is, effectively, an act of cultural cannibalism. The desire to know, which is the foundation of Pretre’s work as an explorer, becomes concrete when it meets an object of knowledge: in this case, the smallest woman in the world. Cultural and affective cannibalism as well as monstrous desire are also evident in the newspaper readers’ reactions to the photo. For example, the woman in the second vignette feels “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” (167). Likewise, in the sixth vignette, the members of one family feel “the desire to have that tiny and indomitable thing” (169). Possession, in all these examples, is premised on dehumanization, as the Western readers of the newspaper do not consider Little Flower’s thoughts, feelings, desires, or context. She is effectively reduced to an object of fascination.
As an antithesis to the Western characters’ monstrous desire and tendency toward dehumanization, Lispector shows Little Flower enjoying her own existence:
And she kept enjoying her own soft laughter, she who wasn’t being devoured. Not being devoured is the secret goal of an entire life. So long as she wasn’t being eaten, her bestial laughter was as delicate as joy is delicate (171).
Initially, in this quotation, the narrator refers to Little Flower’s joy at not being devoured by the cannibals. However, since this fact is not explicit, the content of the following sentences can refer, generally, to another kind of “being devoured,” such as being culturally devoured.
Overall, the dark aspects of desire, in their connection to dehumanization and otherness, are the central theme of this short story. By exploring the themes of monstrous desire and dehumanization, the story sheds light on the potential for both the best and worst aspects of human nature when confronted with difference and otherness.
Motherhood as Power and Vulnerability
“The Smallest Woman in the World” describes the emotions and instincts that are deeply human though mostly unacknowledged in Western society. The fact that the small pygmy woman named Little Flower is pregnant initially emphasizes her vulnerability as a mother. The image of her unborn child as even smaller than her, in need of protection, accentuates a sense of helplessness. However, throughout the story, motherhood is, in addition to a simple fact of human nature, both a source of connection and distance between the Western and African worlds. Despite her small size and perceived vulnerability, Little Flower embodies a sense of resilience that is surprising to the Western eye: A being so small and vulnerable can become a mother like all other mothers in the world.
The mother in the fifth vignette, a reader of the Sunday newspaper, performs another type of action to exert her power in her own world: She maintains the distance between herself and Little Flower’s world. She focuses on “distancing herself, and distancing [her son], from [Little Flower]” (169). The racially offensive description that the mother uses in her thought sequence is, in fact, not hers but Marcel Pretre’s, used to describe Little Flower in the newspaper. The distancing that the mother performs by focusing on her son’s aesthetic appearance is an act of power in relation to Little Flower’s world. However, this gesture, which is contrary to the mother’s deep empathy, comes from vulnerability. This mother knows that she and her son would be excluded from their society were she to show empathy for or similarity to Little Flower. Therefore, her gestures emphasize the difference between her motherhood and Little Flower’s, while her internal thoughts and emotions maintain the deep connection that she feels with the pygmy woman.
In the sixth vignette, a mother and a daughter exchange observations regarding the size of Little Flower’s unborn child. The dialogue maintains the coexistence of fascination and objectification, extended to Little Flower’s baby. The two female characters react with a physicality that reveals a deeper, unconscious connection with Little Flower’s motherhood. However, the father in the vignette imposes a patriarchal boundary to this connection, ambiguous as it is: “‘Enough of this chatter,’ the father growled” (170). The father’s reaction shows the importance of turning motherhood into a social power through distancing. The female characters cannot afford to express their empathy and connection. An empathetic expression of motherhood is replaced, in a patriarchal society, by a dominant and power-informed one. This alludes to the interconnected nature of sexist and racist oppression, as patriarchal structures discourage comradery between women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Anthropology as Justification of Objectification
The theme of anthropology as a justification of objectification is explored through Marcel Pretre and his portrayal of Little Flower. Pretre, described as a “French explorer hunter, and man of the world” (165), approaches a pygmy tribe where he finds a woman whom he describes as “the smallest of the smallest pygmies in the world” (165). Pretre is shown as a man of science, taking notes and attempting to maintain a lens of objectivity, though he reduces the pygmy woman to a mere subject of study and fascination.
With this, the story hints at the exploitative nature of anthropology as a discipline. Pretre’s desire to capture Little Flower’s image for personal gain and fame underscores the self-serving aspect of his anthropological pursuits. His actions suggest that the study of other cultures and individuals can sometimes be driven by a desire for personal validation and the gratification of one’s own intellectual curiosity rather than a genuine attempt at understanding and empathy. As Luz Horne, a professor at the University of San Andrés, Argentina, argues, this aspect of anthropology is justified by the discipline’s connection with a tradition of colonialism and violence toward other cultures:
The tales of the colonization of the Americas resonate here and a proliferation of colonizing, extractivist, and patriarchal stories throughout history. In them, the other is understood as quasihuman, as a thing without agency, as a body without desire, as an object to be looked at, handled, and raped, as an animal to be tamed and domesticated, or as a landscape to be exploited and conquered. These perspectives are akin to those of certain French anthropologists looking for pygmy tribes in Africa (Horne, Luz. “We Are All the Smallest Woman in the World.” Translated by Jane Brodie. Angelaki, 28:2, p. 50).
Scientific exploration becomes, for Marcel Pretre, the justification for his objectification, implying that his actions serve a higher purpose of cultural understanding. His publication of Little Flower’s life-size photo in the Sunday newspaper, taken and published without her explicit consent, is justified by the social prestige of the research that he does. This justification allows him to exploit Little Flower’s existence for his own gain and disregard the ethical implications of his actions.
The short story also highlights the complicity of the Western public in perpetuating Little Flower’s objectification. When her photograph is published in the Sunday newspaper, readers are presented with an image that reinforces the dehumanization of Little Flower. They consume the photograph as a spectacle, devoid of empathy or consideration for her individual experience as a person and a mother. The anthropological framing, which positions her as an exotic curiosity, reinforces this objectification and justifies the public’s voyeuristic gaze.
The Intersection of Gender and Racial Stereotyping
In the short story, racial stereotyping is explored more directly through Marcel Pretre’s approach to the existence of Little Flower, as well as the narrator’s ironic descriptions of the French explorer, the explicit racial stigmatization present in the explorer’s descriptions of Little Flower and her tribe, and the reactions of the Sunday-newspaper readers. The criticism of gender stereotypes is more subtle but still present in the diminutive portrayal of Little Flower, the perception of her motherhood as an additional prize (she would produce a being even smaller than her), and the embarrassment that her behavior produces in the explorer when she does not follow Western rules of conduct for women. The intersectional view of the gender and racial stereotypes that the narrator exposes is key to Lispector’s subtle critique of Western social values.
When the image of Little Flower is published in the newspaper, readers are presented with a narrative that reinforces existing stereotypes about African women. The sensationalized portrayal of Little Flower as a curiosity to be marveled at perpetuates the exoticization of African Indigenous women. The public’s reaction further reinforces gendered and racialized expectations, with some readers expressing desire or curiosity about her physical attributes while others dismiss her as insignificant, likening her to an animal.
The story also touches on the “white savior” trope, another manifestation of gender and racial stereotyping. Pretre’s fascination with Little Flower and her tribe, along with his use of her image for personal gain, is an expression of his position of power as a white man. His gesture of displaying Little Flower’s photograph in the newspaper aims to inform the public in his country by offering information on such a curiosity, an act rooted in the assumption that his own culture is superior. The readers’ reactions reinforce this idea. One young woman exclaims in front of her mother, “Mama, look at her little picture, poor little thing! Just look how sad she is!” (168). This reaction shows that Little Flower, due to her radically different context and appearance, is perceived as lesser than a Western person. She is perceived as “poor” and “sad,” though in the last part of the story, the narrator shows her as a perfectly happy human being with a full life. The Western gaze toward Little Flower maintains the power dynamics often associated with gender and racial stereotypes, where individuals from dominant groups feel entitled to “rescue” or “civilize” those they perceive as inferior.
The story invites readers to critically examine their own biases and assumptions about others based on their gender and race, showing the disturbing implications of such entrenched stereotypes.
