Espelhos, by Walter Benjamin, and Brasília, by Clarice Lispector: the city and the look

Abstract

 The paper aims to discuss the perception of the modern city through the joint analysis of the text Mirrors, by Walter Benjamin, and the chronicle Brasília, by Clarice Lispector. In the analyzed text, Walter Benjamin focuses on the profusion of mirrors in Paris, relating their presence to optical illusions of the spaces of the city. For the philosopher, the mirrors act as a tool that provides a complete shake in the individual's perception, through the dissolution of boundaries between the real and the unreal and through the deepening of the spaces. Benjamin's remarks on the mirror align with his theories about modernity and shock, and relate to the concept of phantasmagoria, as proposed by Theodor Adorno. The city, one of the most important issues discussed by the Frankfurt School, is the subject of Clarice Lispector's chronicle, Brasília, in which the author describes, perplexed, her impressions of the place. Loaded with negativity, the text seems appropriate to a benjaminian analysis, constituting an exemplary matter for the study of the individual's perception in the modern context, and the dominance of images in the urban environment. Thus, both texts converge to an understanding of the city though the sight, through the act of looking.The paper focuses therefore on the examination of this issue in Walter Benjamin's text, an analysis that will be accompanied by the study of Clarice Lispector's chronicle.