Critical Response #3

Critical Response 3: The Fifth Story
To be honest I really liked this story. Since the beginning we have all been taught that stories have a start, a middle, conflict and resolution. Clarice Lispector does an interesting job portraying all of these aspects in an unconventional way. All of her paragraphs focus on what the title of the story would have been if certain events had taken place. Like the first one: How To Kill Cockroaches the entire story is focused on the recipe that the lady gives her. The following one is focused on the actually killing which is why it has the title The Killing. It’s a very unconventional way to tell a story without actually having more than one character interact with each other.
The description near the end is very life-like too. While I was reading this, I got a little uneasy as she was talking about how their shells are hardening and they are stuck where they lay. It has a very eerie and almost sad feeling to it when you find out that this is this woman’s purpose and goal in life, to kill all of these cockroaches. She never really interacts with anyone else; it’s all focused on her and the bugs that she is trying to exterminate. It’s almost as if when she adds another title to the story, the rest of the story begins to come into play, almost like a picture book. The whole story is hidden from us and we have to keep turning the pages to find out what happens.