This study aims at reflecting on the raise of the double in the novella "O unicórnio", by Hilda Hilst, as an evidence of one’s impossibility to express what cannot be expressed. Echoing Gregor Samsa’s uncanny experience, the novella’s narrator suddenly becomes an awkward, absurd creature. A double of the narrator, this new "I" she becomes makes explicit the devious relation, built throughout the text, between a deep necessity of comprehending the world and a world that is closed in its silence, denying to be comprehended. Interpreting the raise of this double-unicorn as the main evidence of this confront, we hope to draw, in the following lines, some reflections on the limits of the language in face of the unspeakable.
"O unicórnio"; double; limitations of language; Hilda Hilst