The Hour of the Star

The narrator Rodrigo’s personal search for meaning and identity inspires his determination to write Macabéa’s story. Rodrigo’s difficulty in beginning Macabéa’s tale and describing her character stems from his personal questions about who he is and what he’s meant to do with his life. This is why the first third of the novel is primarily devoted to Rodrigo’s meandering philosophical questions, existential conundrums, and esoteric thought experiments. He feels incapable of sitting down and focusing on Macabéa’s story because the questions that dominate her narrative are the same questions that pervade his own mind and life. He believes that by writing he might discover “a secret meaning [...] that goes beyond words and sentences” (6).

However, because Macabéa’s story is so simple and her character is so plain, he fears that writing about her might not capture the complexity of life itself: “Forgive me,” he says at the novel’s start, breaking the “fourth wall” by directly addressing readers, “but I’m going to keep talking about me who am unknown to myself, and as I write I’m a bit surprised because I discover I have a destiny” (7). By writing, Rodrigo therefore actively seeks to define himself and to understand his world. This is why his protagonist doesn’t “ask herself ‘who am I’” (7): Rodrigo is already aware of the difficulties that such an existential question creates. If she actively questioned who she was and what her purpose in life was, she would, like Rodrigo fears of his own experience, “fall flat on her face” (7). Nevertheless, Rodrigo never abandons his writing project because in writing he discovers a tool for exploration and questioning. Creating Macabéa’s character and imagining her story offers him a slightly removed way to examine his own purpose and personhood.

Rodrigo’s and Macabéa’s entangled character arcs and storylines convey the purposelessness of life and the fragility of identity. Like Macabéa, Rodrigo fears that he doesn’t exist outside of his writing. Indeed, he never depicts himself conversing with other characters and is most often locked in a small cubby hole by himself, lost in his thoughts and attempting to write. When he isn’t working, he falls asleep because without his characters he becomes no one. Macabéa’s life is similarly devoid of true meaning: She has few occupations and relationships, and the only things that give her life meaning are her private rituals. Such pastimes, however, are devoid of true philosophical meaning; they only succeed in temporarily dulling Rodrigo’s and Macabéa’s loneliness and prolonging their journeys toward their inevitable fates. In these ways, the novel suggests that while life might have moments of joy or beauty, they’re fleeting. Similarly, while one might achieve some sense of identity and purpose, these facets of personhood are fabrications that can’t outlast death.