The tale A chicken sounds like a simple tale, but the simplicity of Clarice's texts is full of

complexity. Let's go to the analysis:

“It was a Sunday chicken. Still alive because it was only nine in the morning.”
The tale begins with the story of a chicken that had been chosen to be Sunday lunch, the narrative
begins with the last moments of the animal's life. The chicken of Sunday brings the importance of
this for the family lunch, the bird would be the main star, unique moment in his life, the moment
of his death, because the chicken showed no other use than to serve as food.
“It seemed calm. Since Saturday he had crouched in a corner of the kitchen. I didn't look at anyone.
No one looked at her. Even when they chose her, feeling their intimacy with indifference, they
couldn't tell if she was fat or thin. One would never guess in her a longing. ”
Here we are given the first detail of the chicken, "seemed calm", ie the chicken near her death was
not nervous, it seemed normal to her. Hugging in the corner of the kitchen shows how much the
chicken accepted the situation, not fighting for her life. This paragraph still shows us how the bird
was an insignificant being: it did not look and was not looked at, it was not known whether it was
fat or thin, one would not guess in it a longing; nothing could be said about her. Such was the
situation of women in the middle of the last century, no matter how they felt, women simply
accepted what was imposed on them. Let us come to see the chicken as the stunted woman, the
woman who had to accept the system, who had no voice at all.
“So it was a surprise when they saw her spread her short wings, swell her chest and, in two or three
throws, reach the wall of the terrace. A moment still wavered — the cook's time to scream — and
soon she was on her neighbor's terrace, from where, on another awkward flight, she reached a roof.
There it was in displaced adornment, hesitating now and then, on another foot. The family was
called urgently and in dismay saw lunch by a chimney. The owner of the house, remembering the
twofold need to sporadically do some sport and have lunch, dressed radiantly in a swimming trunks
and decided to follow the chicken's path: in cautious leaps he reached the roof where the hesitant
and trembling urgently chose another course. The persecution became more intense. From roof to
roof, he walked more than a block from the street. Unfailing a wilder fight for life, the chicken had
to decide for itself the ways to go without any help from its breed. The boy, however, was a
sleeping hunter. And no matter how tiny the prey, the cry of conquest had sounded. ”
The surprise when they saw her spread her wings: the chicken would never be expected to try to
do anything for her freedom, just as the woman who rebelled against the system would never
expect the woman to fight for her rights, she was there and had to accept, she was a woman, then
to be a woman was to have to accept what the macho society imposed. At the beginning of the
escape, the chicken still faltered, or was that correct? Fight the system? The chicken had to decide
for herself without any help from her race, that is, if she decided to fight, she would have to go
alone, no one of her race (human race, including women) would help her. This shows disunity, nor
would other women help anyone who did not accept the rules. As for man, here appears the first
striking feature: the sleeping hunter, while the chicken was the hunt, which he did not know what
to do, the man, even a sedentary being, had a hunter inside him. The woman seen as prey and the
man as hunter, even if that prey was the tiniest.
“Alone in the world, with no father or mother, she ran, panted, mute, concentrated. Sometimes, on
the run, he would gasp for breath on a rooftop eave, and while the boy was hovering over others,
he had time to rebuild for a moment. And then it seemed so free. ”
The woman had no one. It felt so free, a feeling it had never experienced.
“Stupid, shy and free. Not victorious as a rooster would be. What was in her gut that made her a
being? The chicken is a being. True, you couldn't count on her for anything. Nor did she count on
herself, as the rooster believes in its crest. Its only advantage was that there were so many chickens
that one would die at the same instant, another one as equal as if it were the same. ”
Stupid = unintelligent, so unintelligent and shy did not know what to do with freedom gained, so
many women felt, to have freedom it was necessary to stop being stupid, this is one of the reasons
why the tale chicken can't break free. Here again the author compares man to woman, the fleeing
cock would feel victorious, the chicken feeling stupid and shy. The chicken (woman) is a being,
but neither does she believe in herself, the cock believes in her crest. Just the fact that he was born
a rooster (man) puts him in a better position than the chicken. The chicken's insignificance arises
again, one dying another, one submissive woman leaving, another ready to take her place.
“After all, one time when he stopped to enjoy his escape, the boy caught up with her. Amid screams
and feathers, she was arrested. Then carried in triumph by one wing through the tiles and landed
on the kitchen floor with some violence. Still dizzy, she shook a little, in hoarse, undecided
clucking. ”
Here a fact that happens in many texts by Clarice, when it seems that the woman will break free,
she becomes prisoner again. When the chicken would finally have fun, she is arrested. The man
carries it like a trophy, the machismo keeps the chicken (woman) imprisoned, under its rules. The
chicken returns to its starting point, where it should not have tried to leave.
That was when it happened. From pure fluster the chicken laid an egg. Surprised, exhausted.
Maybe it was premature. But soon after, born to her motherhood, she looked like a used-up old
mother. He sat on the egg, breathing like that, buttoning and unbuttoning his eyes. Her heart so
small on a plate was solving and lowering its feathers, filling with warmth what would never be
an egg. Only the girl was close and watched in awe. As soon as he was able to disentangle himself
from the event, he broke free of the ground and shouted.
-Mom, mom, don't kill the chicken anymore, she laid an egg! She wants our good!
Here the situation of the chicken changes; By laying an egg, the chicken shows its maternal side.
The chicken shows that it can be a mother, the same situation as the woman, because it was seen
as an instrument for reproduction, many men chose their women because they realized that they
could be good mothers and good mothers. In addition to laying the egg, the chicken took care of
the egg, born to motherhood the woman lived for it. The girl changed her mind about the chicken's
death when she saw the scene.
“Everyone rushed back to the kitchen and silently surrounded the young parturient woman.
Warming her son, she was neither gentle nor risky, neither happy nor sad, she was nothing, she
was a chicken. Which suggested no special feeling. Father, mother and daughter had been looking
for some time, without any thought at all. No one ever caressed a chicken's head. The father finally
decided with some suddenness:
-If you have this chicken killed I will never eat chicken again in my life!
-Me too! Swore the girl with ardor.
The tired mother shrugged.
The chicken was still the same chicken, but the way she was seen by her family changed. The
woman of the time was also seen like this, when she had a child was her moment, from then on
her life gained brilliance. The woman was the only one who was not moved by the chicken egg,
for her it was no big deal. The woman is not moved, does not fight for her sex, accepts.
“Unaware of her life, the chicken moved in with her family. The girl, back from school, threw the
briefcase away without interrupting the rush to the kitchen. Her father would still remember from
time to time, “And say I made her run in that state!” The chicken had become the queen of the
house. Everyone but her knew it. He continued between the kitchen and the back terrace, using his
two abilities: apathy and startle. ”
At first the chicken was given special treatment, but she was indifferent to it. The queen of the
house was the term for the housewives, our mothers and grandparents, who supported everything
in the name of the family, who took care of it. Only she did not know, that is, only she was not
aware that she was indeed a queen and that if she fought for it, could change her situation. "Run
in that state", the chicken was about to lay an egg, similar to the woman's situation to have a child,
the importance of this moment, at that time many saw pregnancy as a disease, the woman needed
rest. Male repentance was for the only time when woman mattered at the time of procreation.
Apathy = lack of interest, startle = uneasiness, fear; These are the only two capabilities of the
chicken.
“But when everyone was quiet in the house and seemed to have forgotten it, it was filled with little
courage, remnants of the great escape - and it circled the tile, the body advancing behind its head,
paused as in a field, though the small head a to betray: moving fast and vibrating with the old fright
of his already mechanized species. ”
Her only two abilities disappear when she felt forgotten, when the chicken was not watched. The
chicken was again able to get out of this situation, but the bird (woman) settles down after having
a child. Did the woman know what to do with freedom?
“Once in a while, more and more rarely, I remembered again the chicken that had cut itself against
the air on the edge of the roof, about to announce. At such times it filled her lungs with the unclean
air of the kitchen, and if the females were given to sing, she would not sing, but she would be very
pleased. On the run, at rest, when she gave birth or pecking - it was a chicken head, the same one
that had been designed at the beginning of the centuries. ”
The system gradually made her forget about her struggle for freedom, society thwarts her desires.
“If females were given to sing, she wouldn't sing,” even if she had many skills, she would do
nothing, for her role in the world was being done, made to be a mother and only. The text comes
to an end by placing the chicken as an unevolved being, the same chicken with an empty head, and
so it has been for a long time.
“Until one day they killed her, ate her and passed the years.”
Confirmation that women are not free in Clarice's texts. When a woman is no longer fit for
motherhood, she can die because her life is meaningless. Society kills and eats, the years go by
and the situation does not change.
Clarice's tale makes us reflect on the situation of women, it is obvious that women have achieved
many achievements in recent years, but are there still women who act like chickens today, without
voice and without time? Don't many men keep seeing women with simple chickens?