In Lispector’s story “Amor” she uses animals to show the pain and cuelty of our world. Through imagining the feelings of the animals the main character, Ana, comes to new realizations about the world she lives in and the experiences others go through.
She goes through three phases of realization throughout the story. The first is the realization, it is in this stage that through empathizing with the blind man she begins to see a world beyond her life. She experiences the next stage while within the garden. Here she begins to see the dark side of the world and the power she had been blind to until now, but within this she can also see the balance that nature creates. The last stage in the story Ana experiences the creatures crushed and hurt by the world and begins to consider the impact of her own actions.
| Animal | Actions | Parallel/Realization |
| Blind Man | A man standing on the road chewing gum. | His lack of sight opens Ana’s eyes to the unfairness and dark side of the world she lives in. |
| Cat | Standing in an avenue, walking silently down the street. | The cat represents the silent power of society. The cat holds the type of power that isn’t always noticed but is extremely powerful. |
| Sparrow | Pecking at the dirt. | The sparrow is attacking the dirt, a place where the weakest creatures live, representing the powerful of the worlds actions to attack the ground even when they own the sky. |
| Spider | Hanging from a tree. | Here Ana begins to think of the tranquil power of death. The spider is a killer but contains a grace and peacefulness. Death itself is not evil but rather just part of the puzzle. |
| Parasite | Living on the tree trunks. | The parasites are the rot on top of the healthy trees. They eat away the outside, slowly leading to the decompensation of the trees, or society. |
| Squirrel | Jumps into the shadows of the garden. | The squirrel shows a balance of the light and the dark. There is no reason to fear the dark itself, anyone can enter into the shadows and be fine. |
| Spider | Living under the oven in the dust. | Here Ana begins to see those hurt by her or others actions. She sees the spider forced to live in the dust, much like many people hiding under bridges or boxes just to survive. |
| Ant | Stepped on by Ana in the kitchen. | Ana realizes that her actions can hurt others directly. Stepping on the ant did no harm to her, it didn’t even take any effort, yet it changes the ants whole life. A small action by you can irreversibly change another life. |
| Summer Beetles | Hanging around the house. | This is a representation of the terrible monotony of life. The lack of expression leading to unfeeling repetition throughout our short lives. There is an abject horror to be felt when thinking about experiencing the same thing for the rest of your life. |
This use of animal subjectivity relates to the story because empathy is a form of love. Throughout the story Ana is expressing a form of love as she reaches to understand the creatures she is encountering. To understand something is to love it, for it is only things we don’t understand that we hate and fear. The love in this story is not romantic or familial, is is the love of the world and of others that we can express when we choose to take notice of the world around us, rather than only focusing on our own lives.