ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the presence of racism and the need to perform whiteness in Clarice Lispector's novel A hora da estrela. This novel describes the struggles of Macabea, a young girl from the Northeast, as she tries to survive and make a living in Rio de Janeiro. Macabea was able to co-exist with a non-examined whiteness, that of Marilyn Monroe. By becoming conscious of her not-quite whiteness Macabea becomes aware of a situation of oppression: whiteness becomes a concrete, real obstacle, one that Macabea cannot survive. In contrast to the mixed-race characters from the novels O lustre and A maca no escuro, who have no personal name and are referred to simply by their mark of non-whiteness, the narrator of A hora da estrela never marks Gloria simply as a mulatto woman. It is interesting to note that Toni Morrison's novel Beloved is triggered by a process similar to what happens at the end of A hora da estrela.
