SOURCE: "The Drama of Existence in Laços de família," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 1, Winter, 1971, pp. 256-67.

In the following essay, Pontiero maintains that the characters in Lispector's stories in Laços de família experience what Albert Camus calls the absurdity of existence, and points out that Lispector draws readers into the private, subconscious worlds of her protagonists without ever losing touch with the drama of real life.

Although Clarice Lispector has written a number of successful novels in her somewhat hermetic style, her critics generally agree that her true outlet lies in the shorter forms of prose fiction. The stories of Laços de Família give a comprehensive picture of her private world with its deep psychological complexities. Directly influenced by Existentialist writers, she shows an obsessive preoccupation with the themes of human suffering and failure, the disconcerting implications of man's...