Amor

Clarice Lispector

The way Amor is narrated, in a somwhat horizontal experience, is through the actions and what the main character experiences that ends up shaping the whole story.
She describes everything and we soon realize how everything in the story is a drop that creates an ocean and impacts the way in which she sees the world. Animals in her story are not just objects but an interaction that has an impact on her life and how she thinks.

When seing the blind man she is at first disgusted to the point she looks at him as if she hated him. She then mentions she doesn't know how to look at someone or something that can't look back at you, like she would an animal and how that simple reaction and feeling of hers towards the man, which in this case is something not as important and something not being affected or even noticing the woman, have such a big effect on her life. When she enters the garden and begins to relax, she describes the animals and plants dynamics, she describes how they all in a way have their own rythm in just living, being true to their instincts and serving themselves. There is no doubt in what an animal ever does and she begins to be a part of the environment she is, just existing.
These series of events "awaken" her, when she decides to leave the garden she even describes as if she were ashamed of having been there so long and not being at her house where her children and husband await her. The title "love" I think is reflected in the moment she comes home to find her son and she hugs him scared of the outside. She came back because she loves him and says "No dejes que mamá te olvide" as if she were afraid of herself and what she might do if she forgot him. This is a very unromantic kind of love that weare used to seeing protrayed in films or in literature. I believe the events of that day changed the way she saw the world completely and it definetely marked a before and after in her life.