Who He Is
Skilled and idle lathe operator, a former capoeira of renown, lover of Rita Baiana when the book introduces him. He earns in a week what he spends in a day, plays guitar and sings the chorado at the pagode, and has long-standing jealousy and quarrels with Rita. He is Jerônimo's rival in the razor fight and the one the book kills on the beach, in an ambush.
Trajectory
He first appears by name: the washerwomen say Rita disappeared for eight days on a spree with him (chapter III). He arrives at the pagode with Porfiro, with guitar and cavaquinho, and the narrator portrays him (chapter VII).
Era oficial de torneiro, oficial perito e vadio; ganhava uma semana para gastar num dia, He was a turner, a skilled and idle craftsman; he earned a week's wages to spend in a day
Pernas e braços finos, pescoço estreito, porém forte; não tinha músculos, tinha nervos., Thin legs and arms, narrow neck, yet strong; he had no muscles, he had nerves.
He shouts a challenge at Miranda, who threatens to call the police from the townhouse window, and sings the chorado that silences Jerônimo's fado (chapter VII). He distrusts the Portuguese and exchanges a challenging look with him (chapter IX). On the night of the samba, he wins the first part of the fight with kicks and head blows, is overpowered by Jerônimo's cudgel and, to escape, wounds him in the belly with the razor and flees (chapter X).
Jerônimo era alto, espadaúdo, construção de touro, pescoço de Hércules, punho de quebrar um coco com um murro: era a força tranquila, o pulso de chumbo. O outro, franzino, um palmo mais baixo que o português, pernas e braços secos, agilidade de maracajá: era a força nervosa; era o arrebatamento que tudo desbarata no sobressalto do primeiro instante. Um, sólido e resistente; o outro, ligeiro e destemido, mas ambos corajosos., Jerônimo was tall, broad-shouldered, built like a bull, with the neck of Hercules and a fist that could crack a coconut with one blow: he was the calm strength, the pulse of lead. The other, slight, a span shorter than the Portuguese, with thin arms and legs and the agility of a maracajá: he was nervous strength, the rush that overturns everything in the shock of the first instant. One solid and enduring, the other quick and fearless, but both brave.
No one informs on him, and he is forbidden to return to the tenement under threat of police (chapter XI, chapter XII). He moves to Cabeça-de-Gato, where he is protected and becomes the leader of a gang, which cools his romance with Rita (chapter XIII). When he learns that Jerônimo has come back from the hospital, jealousy grows in him like the thirst of a wounded man (chapter XIV).
um ciúme doido, um desespero feroz rebentou-lhe por dentro e cresceu logo como a sede de um ferido, a mad jealousy, a fierce despair burst up inside him and at once grew like the thirst of a wounded man
Lured to Praia da Saudade by a lie about Rita, he is held by two figures, disarmed by Pataca and beaten to death (chapter XV).
Soltaram-no então. O capoeira, mal tocou com os pés em terra, desferiu um golpe com a cabeça, ao mesmo tempo que a primeira cacetada lhe abria a nuca., They then let him go. The capoeira, barely touching the ground with his feet, struck a blow with his head, at the same moment as the first cudgel blow split his nape.
The gang of Cabeça-de-Gato, about a hundred strong, led by Porfiro, storms the tenement to avenge him, and the battle is only interrupted by the fire at number 88 (chapter XVII).
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Sexuality and Social Class. The symbol that accompanies him on stage is the fado and the chorado: the guitar and the voice with which he silences Jerônimo's fado at the pagode (chapter VII).
The text presents him through what he spends and what he lost: the turner's trade he commands and the office messenger's job he called his ideal (chapter VII), and his death comes from an ambush and a lie, not from the face-to-face fight in which the text showed him (chapter X, chapter XV).
Firmo and Jerônimo are the pair the narrator draws through strength, the nervous and the calm (chapter X), and the difference is also one of position: the capoeira lives off what he earns in a week, the quarryman off savings that later dissolve. The one who leaves the fight alive is the one who had the cudgel and the helpers.
Relationships
- Rita Baiana: the lover he fights over and who comes to fear him.
- Jerônimo: the rival he wounds and who kills him in the ambush.