The Hour of the Star Identity Quotes

This is hands down one of the coolest lines in the book. It speaks to that secret fear that we all have that we're actually not like other people at all—that all our bad thoughts and feelings make us into something subhuman or monstrous. Or, you know, maybe that's just us.

The thing about asking questions is that, if you have to ask, you know that there's something (like a clear answer) missing. But does the answer even exist? If we're just going by this book, we'd have to go with no.

So, this is basically the experience you have when you look in a fun house mirror and see yourself all distorted. But we have to ask: since we already know that Macabéa never thinks about herself, how could she possibly think that she looks "tarnished"? We're starting to suspect that the narrator is putting a lot of words into her mouth.

Well, no wonder she becomes paralyzed: this is a question that's basically impossible to answer. Macabéa's reaction highlights how traumatic this question can be, especially if we're surprised by the answer we give ourselves.

To live in limbo is to be between states, like stuck in a doorway or trapped in an elevator, or halfway between being alive and dead. Which, if you think about, sums up Macabéa's existence pretty neatly—and depressingly.

If Macabéa feels herself to be something other than human, then we have to ask what it might mean to be human. Does she need to belong to the world? To think about herself? To have self-awareness?

Forget cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"); this is non cogito ergo non sum ("I do not think, therefore I am not." Or, you know, something along those lines. Our Latin's a little rusty.) If you are not aware of yourself, do you exist? If others are not aware of you, do you exist? It's awful to think about—but, at the same time, there seems to be a connection between this inner emptiness and the abundance of grace that Macabéa attains.

After Macabéa visits the fortuneteller, she is full of hope about her future, and she feels like a new person, so she is no longer her old self. This is Macabéa 2.0: better, hope-ier, and, sadly, not long for the world.

So, maybe Macabéa really is becoming more and more herself—but we have to remember that this is a story told by our narrator, who tells it from his perspective and from his own search for the meaning of life. Maybe Macabéa is really just becoming Macabéa for him, and she still feels as lost as ever.

You'd think that dying would be a process of unbecoming, but instead it seem like Macabéa is trying to become something in death. The repetition of "I am" emphasizes that death is giving her a new opportunity to be fully herself—and yet she can't even finish the sentence.