The Theme in the Work
In chapter I, Brás Cubas opens his memoirs at the end and presents himself as a deceased author, for whom the grave was another cradle. In chapter VII, the figure who calls herself Nature or Pandora denies him more years and shows him the parade of the centuries (see Pandora and the Delirium).
Death seen up close comes in chapter XXIII, in his mother's agony, and the deaths of others cross the book: his father in chapter XLIV, old Viegas in chapter LXXXIX, Dona Plácida in chapter CXLIV, Nhã-loló in chapter CXXVI, and Quincas Borba in chapter CLIX.
Other deaths in the book come from outside. In chapter XIX, the captain's consumptive wife dies aboard and is thrown into the sea, and Brás, who had considered killing himself over Marcela, confesses that he did not dare look at death when it came to him. In chapter XLV, his father's burial shrinks to a single sentence with the weeping, the draped house, the coffin, the prayers, and the hearse, notes for a sad and vulgar chapter that Brás says he will not write. In chapter LXXXIX, old Viegas haggles to the end over the sale of a house and dies when the buyer reaches thirty-eight contos, after having demanded forty.
After Virgília leaves, death passes almost without a jolt. In chapter CXVI, Brás's uncle the canon and two cousins die, and he takes them to the cemetery the way one takes letters to the post office. In chapter CXXVI, Nhã-loló dies at the first arrival of yellow fever, and Brás, who accompanies her to the vault without tears, concludes that perhaps he did not truly love her. In chapter CL, when his newspaper dies, Lobo Neves also dies, who was about to become a minister, and Brás admits his relief and sees Virgília weeping in earnest at the burial.
In chapter CLX, the deceased closes his accounts by saying that he passed on to no creature the legacy of our misery.
Death enters the book through three doors: the place from which Brás speaks, the law of Nature that the delirium exposes, and the scene he recounts from afar when it is not his own. In his mother's agony the lightness fails, and in the other burials (his father, his cousins, Plácida, Lobo Neves) it returns, so the text leaves two readings open: the comfort of someone who has already crossed death, or the pose of someone who makes grief a matter of style.
Where It Appears
- Chapter I: Brás Cubas opens the memoirs with his own death, on a Friday in August 1869, at sixty-four years of age, and presents himself as a deceased author, for whom the grave was another cradle.
- Chapter VII: In the delirium, Brás Cubas meets an immense figure who calls herself Nature or Pandora, mother and enemy, who denies him more years and, from the top of a mountain, shows him the parade of the centuries.
- Chapter XIX: The captain's consumptive wife dies aboard and is thrown into the sea, and Brás, who had thought of killing himself over Marcela, confesses that he did not dare look at death when it came to him.
- Chapter XXIII: Brás watches, mute and without tears, his mother's long agony, eaten by a stomach cancer, and says it was the first time he could face the death of someone he loved.
- Chapter XLIV: Brás's father dies on a May morning, four months after seeing the castles he engineered come undone, and Brás writes that it seems to him he died of nothing else.
- Chapter XLV: Brás lists in a single sentence the weeping, the draped house, the coffin, the prayers, and the hearse at his father's burial, and says they are notes for a sad and vulgar chapter that he does not write.
- Chapter LXXXIX: Old Viegas haggles to the end over the sale of a house, demands forty contos, and dies when the buyer reaches thirty-eight.
- Chapter XCV: Brás loses the embryo he had been conversing with in thought and writes that it left at the point where one cannot tell Laplace from a tortoise.
- Chapter CXVI: After Virgília's departure, Brás's uncle the canon and two cousins die, and he takes them to the cemetery like someone carrying letters to the post office, without being moved.
- Chapter CXXVI: Nhã-loló dies at the first arrival of yellow fever, and Brás, who accompanies her to the vault without tears, concludes that perhaps he did not truly love her.
- Chapter CXLIV: Brás sends Dona Plácida to the Misericordia out of courtesy, she is found dead at dawn, and he concludes that her life served his loves with Virgília.
- Chapter CL: When Brás's newspaper dies, Lobo Neves also dies, who was about to become a minister, and Brás admits his relief and sees Virgília weeping in earnest at the burial.
- Chapter CLIX: Quincas Borba returns from Minas demented, knowing he is mad, and dies in Brás's house, repeating that pain is an illusion.
- Chapter CLX: Brás takes stock of what he was not and did not have, and ends the memoirs by saying he had no children and passed on to no creature the legacy of our misery.
Passages
Brás says where he speaks from.
eu não sou propriamente um autor defunto, mas um defunto autor, para quem a campa foi outro berço, I am not properly a deceased author, but a deceased author, for whom the grave was another cradle
The delirium gives Nature two names and two relations.
Chama-me Natureza ou Pandora; sou tua mãe e tua inimiga, Call me Nature or Pandora; I am your mother and your enemy
His mother's death is the first that Brás faces without rhetorical equipment.
Mas esse duelo do ser e do não ser, a morte em ação, dolorida, contraída, convulsa, sem aparelho político ou filosófico, a morte de uma pessoa amada, essa foi a primeira vez que a pude encarar, But this duel of being and not being, death in action, aching, contracted, convulsive, without political or philosophical apparatus, the death of a loved one, that was the first time I could face it
The deceased does the accounting of what death took from him.
Esta é a grande vantagem da morte, que, se não deixa boca para rir, também não deixa olhos para chorar, This is the great advantage of death: if it leaves no mouth to laugh, it also leaves no eyes to weep
Brás answers the critic about the book's time.
A morte não envelhece, Death does not grow old