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Presentation on The Daydream of A Drunk Woman by Clarice Lispector

The short story, “Daydream of a Drunk Woman,” by Clarice Lispector, depicts the value
of self-image in a masochistic world that is dominated by social standing. She is creating the
main protagonist as an image of herself. The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman,” by Clarice
Lispector, is a short story about a woman’s struggle with herself, with her life, and with society’s
expectations of her. Maria’s internal turmoil, though dramatized, was characteristic of women in
the early 1960s, when, in their fight for gender equality, they struggled to reconcile contrasting
ideals. Maria feels imprisoned in an unhappy marriage, yet in society’s view, marriage is
supposed to make women happy. Maria was married, as was expected of her, but she considers
her marriage the cause of her distress more a form of enslavement than a blessing. She rages
about her husband and children, resenting the expectations they place on her as a mother and
wife. In the 1960s, sentiment toward woman was changing, but most people in society still clung
to traditional ideas. Women longed to escape their traditional roles and expand their horizons.
Maria escapes into a state of drunkenness, and in her drunkenness, she daydreams a different
reality. She also unleashes her unhappiness, rage, and self-hatred. It appears that when Maria is
drunk, she reveals her true emotions. She hates herself for choosing a life that clashes with her
needs and desires. She also rages against the people who imprison her. Maria’s internal struggle
is grueling and self-critical, in large part because she recognizes her own role in her
imprisonment.
Throughout the story, Maria is unsatisfied with how she is living her daily life. Her
routine has made her forget who she truly is because she is so focused on her role as a mother
and a wife. Maria realizes that she married for the wrong intentions and is resentful because of
it. Her life is not the ideal on that she had in mind, and she is wanting to change it. Her
perception of reality changes because of it and she wants to search for something deeper than
just being a mom and a housewife. Her feeling of having only one purpose in life is making her
object to taking it out on her husband and ultimately her children. Her act of being a wife is
holding her back to all that she can be and in the first half of this story she begins to realize this.
This conclusion begins to make her believe that she does not really have a place in this world if
she keeps caring only for her family.
The only time that she sees how her mood affects her actions is when she is drunk. In her
drunken state she realizes that she is not happy and would rather not have a husband or kids. She
anticipates that one day she will realize that she really does love her husband, but when the day
never comes, she feels hopeless. She feels as if they do not need her so why should she try and
care for them if she does not have to. She is jealous of other women who seem better off than
she is and shows her jealousy in the restaurant. She seems as if she likes to drink because she has
no worries and forgets all about her responsibilities at home. Her drunk hallucinations are better
than her reality, so she dives deep into the alcohol to try to lose her sense of unimportant
roles that society has placed on her.
Maria admits throughout the story that she does not see herself as anything of
importance. While she is making cruel remarks to women around her, she realizes that they
parallel to her situation and shows that she does not take pride in anything about her life. Her
social standing in the world is nothing compared to that of her husband or of that to women who
are more than just housewives. Her drunken words show her true feelings towards to how she
views herself and the women that are in the same position that she is in.

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 The fact that no other character’s names were mentioned in the story shows that Maria
ultimately is the most important part of the story. She was concerned the whole time that she was
inessential and lacking everything that the people around her lacked. However, by not naming
any other characters, it shows that she is the main focus – just like how she thinks it should be in
society. Maria being the only true character shows that women could step outside of their “roles”
in the world. The other characters are named by what they do, not who they are. In fact,
everyone around her may see her as the center of their own grounded state, but she is too angry
against herself for not breaking the norm of women in the early 1960s.
During the 1960s, it was implied that women had to be married to fit in. Those who were
not married were considered outcasts. In this story, though, it seems to be opposite. Maria hated
being married and despised her husband for it. Her happiest time were when she was alone. She
did not want to be seen as only having importance in bearing children. She knew that she was
worth more than that, but her only identity in being a housewife kept her in shackles. Her
marriage and motherhood were not anything but a hardship on her. While many may look down
on her for being drunk in a public setting, this is the only time that she actually gets her point
across. Maria wants nothing more than to be an outcast at this point so that maybe she could
finally find a sense of freedom and hopefulness, something that only appears to her when she is
intoxicated. She finally finds her position in society when she is in this state of being.
Maria’s only stability in life occurs to her while she is in the lowest point of her life.
When she is at the restaurant drinking, she is the happiest. This realization shows that marriage
and family cannot complete a woman. A woman has to find her true identity in something other
that being a housewife. Because her reality cannot meet the standards that she had, she has to
turn to drinking as a way to cope with her wrong doings.
Lispector reveals Maria’s inner dialogue and negative diction, to show how, in her

drunken state, the woman views herself unfavorably and tries to justify to herself her own

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position within society. The sudden switch to an inner dialogue, from a third person to first

person point of view gives the reader a window into the mind of the speaker. The reader can see

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that the use of negative diction used to describe the rich woman Maria saw shows her apparent

jealousy of someone who she sees is in a better position. The “madam with her affectations” as

Maria describes has a negative connation and denotation as Maria is leading the reader to believe

that the other female is fake and superficial, and is acting to get attention. Maria also compares

her beauty and assets to the other female’s. While she sees the other female as someone who is

richer and playing well the role of a “refined lady,” she feels the need to destroy her initial

impression of the madam to satisfy herself; she feels insecure so there is the need to convince

herself that she is on equal ground, on the same social level, as the other woman. In addition, she

continues on to call the madam a “shameless slut,” showing her strong desire to tear down the

image of the other woman that she has. While she originally feels humiliated and out of place for

not wearing a hat, Maria by the end of this section attempts to convince herself that she has no
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 reason to feel that way and that she is better than this woman with a hat anyways.

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 Maria’s perceptions of herself differs between scenes in the short story. While she was in

the bar, she saw herself negatively, as seen in the scene with the “refined lady.” She also

mentions that at the tavern, she was “nothing more than a fishwife trying to pass herself off as a

duchess” (813). She sees herself as extremely out of place in this party but does nothing to

change her situation. There are also instances where she views herself as “a lazy bitch” when she

realizes none of the housework has been done. On the other hand, there are instances when

Maria perceives herself positively. In the beginning scene of the story, she was sitting in front of

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a mirror and within the first paragraph, it was repeated, “Her eyes did not look away as the

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mirrors trembled…her eyes did not take themselves off her image.” She seems to be completely

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wrapped up in her own appearance. Additionally, at the end of the story, she mentions how her

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husband’s protector pressed his foot against hers, and wonders if that move was intentional.

Maria seems to hold herself on a pedestal in these two scenes as she is in awe of her own beauty

and she thinks she has captured the attention of another man who is not her husband.

The contrasting perceptions Maria has of herself insinuates that she is dealing with issues

of self-esteem and self-identity. Although she views herself highly in the privacy of her bedroom

at the start of the story, she turns to lambasting another woman who she sees as better than her

and belittles herself after her appearance at a public event. Through this short story, Lispector

shows the difficulties of finding and understanding one’s identity.