The way Lispector uses the character of the narrator and his character Macabéa to contemplate the meaning of life and how happiness is created is incredibly clever, with a multitude of layers and interpretations. Macabéa's character made me very sad, with her desires for knowledge and love that remained unfounded and the immense suffering she experienced, yet Lispector asks whether we can feel sad for her if she is not sad herself. The narrator does not, he looks down on her rather a lot and pities her 'pathetic' life, nor do those around her who accuse her of idiocy, yet she does not live in misery. Her suffering helps her to understand herself, the self that exists. She was told she must be grateful to be alive and so she is. The contrasting discussions of existentialism between Rodrigo and Macabéa's lives, Rodrigo who has faced the absurd and who has learned to live from a girl who hasn't, is deeply interesting, and Lispector's poignant writing has evoked many contemplations of where happiness can be derived from, and what contingencies exist upon it.

'Una furva lacrima' had been the only really beautiful thing in her life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she'd ever cried, she didn't know she had so much water in her eyes. She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, having never lived any other, she accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I think she was also crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and a certain luxury of the soul.