Melancholia Essay

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MELANCHOLIA In the nineteenth century, the famous writer Victor-Marie Hugo (1802-1885) once wrote: “melancholia is the happiness of being sad.” Having this thought as a reflection and assuming the concept of melancholia, the objective of the present essay is to link two characters from two distinct works: Justine, one of the characters of Lars Von Trier’s film entitled as “Melancholia”; and Macabéa, the protagonist of Clarice Lispector’s novel entitled as “The hour of the star”. These characters, which at first impression are different between each other, share the feeling called melancholia, but express and feel it in distinct ways. The film “Melancholia” is about the imminent collision of a planet named Melancholia into the Earth, which result in full destruction. The history is developed around the relationship between the sisters Justine and Claire. Justine is the “problematic” sister and Claire is the “correct” one and, with the help of her rich husband John, is always trying to “fix” Justine’s life. Apparently, the film is about the collision and all the despair that it causes, however is about families and their crises; people and their deepest feelings and how they deal with them, facing all the surrounding dramas. In the end, metaphorically, is an analysis about humanity. The novel “The hour of the star” is the story narrated by Rodrigo S.M. of Macabéa, an orphan woman who came from Alagoas - northeast of Brazil - to Rio de Janeiro. There she works as a typist and lives in a room with four girls, meets Olímpico de Jesus, who becomes her boyfriend, but she is still always lonely. Macabéa has no family, no perspective, no money; she can only wonder how life could be for her and, after suffering enough misfortunes, decides to see a tarot reader. The fortune-teller tells her that she is going to be happy; she is going to have a wonderful life. But in
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