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
The Old Woman in the Wood The Old Woman in the Wood "The Old Woman in the Wood" ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 123. It is Aarne-Thompson type 442. A beautiful but poor servant girl traveled with the family she worked for when robbers attacked them. She hid behind a tree, but no one else survived. She lamented her fate, and a dove came to her with a golden key. It told her to unlock a tree and she found food there. In the evening, it brought her one to a tree with a bed. She lived like