The Meaning of Life

The Theme in the Work

From chapter I on, the book takes stock of a life: Brás Cubas died at sixty-four, unmarried, with about three hundred contos and eleven friends at the burial. In chapter II, the plaster promises to relieve melancholy humanity (see the plaster), and in chapter VII, the delirium shows happiness as a chimera that flees or laughs and vanishes (see Pandora and the Delirium).

Meaning passes through pain and time. In chapter XXIII comes the mother's agony; in chapter LIV, the clock that counts the hours; in chapter LXXI, the advantage of death; in chapter LXXXV, the mountaintop, from which love begins to descend.

Quincas Borba offers answers, and the book keeps them without deciding. In chapter CXVII, there is only one misfortune, which is not to be born, and pain is an illusion (see Humanitism); in chapter CXLI, life is struggle; in chapter CXIX, Brás writes that we kill time and time buries us; in chapter CXXXV, oblivion comes; in chapter CLX, the final reckoning.

The book also weighs happiness and consolation. In chapter VI, on seeing Virgília again, Brás advises that the least bad thing is to remember and that no one should trust present happiness, because there is in it a drop of Cain's spittle. In chapter XXIII, before his mother's agony, he writes that cancer is indifferent to the virtues of the sufferer and that, when it gnaws, it gnaws, because gnawing is its trade. In chapter LXXI, he says that the great advantage of death is that, if it leaves no mouth to laugh, it also leaves no eyes to weep. In chapter CXLI, Quincas Borba stops in ecstasy before two dogs fighting over a bone with no meat and says that life without struggle is a dead sea. In chapter CXXXV, Brás foresees oblivion at fifty years and says the succession of generations is a spectacle to amuse the planet Saturn.

The book does not answer; it keeps accounts. Brás opens with the reckoning of death and closes with the reckoning of denials, and in between pass consolations that do not hold up on their own: the hope in Pandora's bag, the struggle of the dogs, pain as illusion. The final balance has two readings, that of full pessimism and that of the relief of someone who leaves no one to suffer, and the text does not choose.

Where It Appears

• Chapter I: Brás Cubas tells his own death as a reckoning of age, marital status, property, and friends, and says that a grand and useful idea, more than pneumonia, killed him.
• Chapter II: Brás conceives a plaster meant to relieve melancholy humanity, but confesses that the main motive was seeing Brás Cubas Plaster printed in newspapers and on street corners.
• Chapter VI: On seeing Virgília again, Brás advises that the least bad thing is to remember and that no one should trust present happiness, because there is in it a drop of Cain's spittle.
• Chapter VII: In the procession of centuries shown by the figure of Nature or Pandora, Brás sees happiness as a chimera that flees and, when caught, laughs and vanishes.
• Chapter XXIII: Before his mother's agony, Brás writes that cancer is indifferent to the virtues of the sufferer and that, when it gnaws, it gnaws, because gnawing is its trade.
• Chapter LIV: Brás, sleepless after the kiss, recalls that the tick-tock of the clock made him ill, and says the last man will have a watch in his pocket to know the exact hour at which he dies.
• Chapter LXXI: Brás says that the great advantage of death is that, if it leaves no mouth to laugh, it also leaves no eyes to weep.
• Chapter LXXXV: Brás says the peak of his love with Virgília was the mountaintop, from which for a while the two saw a calm blue sky before they began to descend the slope.
• Chapter CXVII: Quincas Borba sets out Humanitism to Brás and affirms that there is truly only one misfortune, which is not to be born, and that pain is pure illusion.
• Chapter CXIX: Among the maxims he wrote while bored, Brás leaves the one that says we kill time and time buries us.
• Chapter CXXXV: Brás foresees that, at fifty and without freshness, oblivion will come, and says the succession of generations is a spectacle to amuse the planet Saturn, which is very bored.
• Chapter CXLI: Quincas Borba stops in ecstasy before two dogs fighting over a bone with no meat and tells Brás that life is struggle and that life without struggle is a dead sea.
• Chapter CLX: Brás takes stock of what he was not and did not have, and closes the book by saying he had no children and passed on to no creature the legacy of our misery.

Passages

Only what has passed is enjoyed.

Happiness as a figure that flees and laughs.

Quincas Borba reduces misfortune to a single one.

Life becomes struggle, even over a bone with no meat.

Oblivion becomes a spectacle for a bored planet.

The last sentence of the book.