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
There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe six children of her own and ten stepchildren. Albert Jack has proposed a political origin for the rhyme. George II was nicknamed the "old woman", because it was widely believed that Queen Caroline was the real power behind the throne. According to this explanation, the children are the Members of Parliament (MPs) that George was unable to control, the whip refers to the political office of that name – the MP whose role is to ensure that members of his party vote according to the party line – and the bed is the House of Commons, which MPs were required