From onthological misunderstanding to catharsis in Hilda Hilst

Abstract

Our study is aimed at investigating the operational aspects of the agency of and about Hillé, especially with regard to the search for understanding, which converge in the admission of the element of death as the character's completeness/catharsis. Thereby, we followed three paths to dysphoric overcoming. Initially, we consider it pertinent to reflect on the attempt to obtain clarity through the construction of definitions of the character about herself, as well as visions and other external components that also act in the formation of such definitions. Further on, the protagonist explores textures of mourning and death, resting, on this last element, the resolution of her existential conflicts – her completeness. In the last section, we discuss the dissociation established by Hillé between the divine and the earthly, which implies an integration of her non-delimited search. To do so, we resort, substantially, to the works Mourning and melancholia, by Freud (2011), and The author and the hero, by Bakhtin (1997).