Near to the Wild Heart opens with a scene of the child Joana playing in the garden, making up poems for her father. Joana's wildness and barely suppressed violence, along with her linguistic creativity, are her most notable features. She is frequently compared to animals: over the course of the book Lispector compares her to a bird, a snake, a wildcat, a horse, and a dog. She commits transgressive acts—as a child she throws a book at an old man's head, for example, and as a married woman she leaves her husband, Otávio, and greets the news of his adultery—he has made another woman, his
Woman of the Year disagreements about not being together enough, but a bigger problem occurs when Tess volunteers to take on the care of a Greek refugee child, Chris (George Kezas), without consulting Sam. Tess is excited but trepidatious about Sam's reaction. He initially believes Tess is pregnant when she announces they're having a child. Upon meeting Chris, however, he is angry and doesn't want to start a family by adopting an unrelated six-year-old orphan. Still, he tries to befriend the boy and introduces him to sports. Tess learns that she has received the award of "America's Outstanding Woman of the Year", to be