Simon Critchley’s message in Surfaciality tries to convey that poets through poetry “return us to familiarity with things through de-familiarization…”. Rather than relying on the repetitive facts or statements that are handed to us, Critchley states that poets unravel the basic meaning of things that have been determined or defined by humans. The author portrays the poets as children or people who are going through a rebirth, making them immune to the “sickness” that the habit of familiarity gives us. They make an attempt to discover the “mystical” or “other-worldly” things that have always been in front of us without much realization of such things. We decide to have things the way they are because it would be more beneficial for us to keep them this way rather than leaving them in the dark. Even though it provides “lucidity”, we are not able to acquire our own knowledge through our senses and experiences.

Clarice Lispector implements Critchley’s ideology in The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman. The woman in the short story depicts the repetitive facts or statements that we already know while the drunk woman depicts the rawness of reality— things that we have uncovered. When the woman is sober, she portrays a person who follows the traditional values who leaves behind their true identity in order to become a house wife to maintain a family. While sober, it seems that she is satisfied of the person she has become because she was able to find shelter by relying on her husband and it is perceived that she was made to fit that role. Although, this may seem to be the norm, it is something that doesn’t represents her. When she is drunk, she unravels her reality which is the dissatisfaction with the person she has become. She is no longer able to do what interests her. Through the rediscover of her identity and her place in the world, this gives her the opportunity to compromise the way she lives her life.