Discussion Questions

Bertoleza hands her savings to João Romão and accepts the letter he reads aloud: what, in the chapter's scenes, makes her trust understandable, and what else could she have done?

Botelho catches Estela and Henrique and, instead of denouncing them, advises them: what does he gain by keeping quiet, and why does the text show him happier the more each one of the couple despises the other?

Dona Isabel would rather see Pombinha single than marry her off before she "becomes a woman," even knowing that marriage would take them out of the tenement: what, in her own words, weighs more, decency or the fear of what people will say?

Jerônimo asks for seventy milreis, and Romão, who pays fifty, gives in after seeing the quarry: what convinces him, the week's accident, the wasted stone, or the calculation that the money goes back to the grocery?

The chapter shows Jerônimo serious and thrifty and Romão profiting from that seriousness: what each gains from the arrangement, and what each fails to see in the other?

Rita says she prefers to live "lord and master of what is one's own" rather than marry: what, in the text, does she understand by freedom, and what does the book show that this choice costs her or gives her?

Jerônimo is described as someone whom the climate, the music and Rita's scent gradually overcome: to what extent does the text treat what he feels as something that happens to him, and to what extent as something he chooses when he decides to stay in the circle?

Leocádia asks for a child so she can hire herself out as a wet nurse, and Bruno punishes her without knowing with whom she was: what does each of the two want, and what does the tenement's laughter at the fight show about what it tolerates?

João Romão calms the washerwomen with the promise of a dowry and then denies the clerk his balance: what does he protect in each of the two gestures, and what does the tenement accept from him?

João Romão has money to spare and envies the neighbor for a title: what is it that his money still cannot buy?

The residents accompany João Romão to the subdelegado like a pilgrimage, and none of them informs on anyone: what unites these people, and what happens to that unity when the loss arrives?

Pombinha will marry because her mother and the tenement expect it of her, although she no longer loves her fiancé: what does she gain and what does she lose by saying yes?

The narrator says that in his daydreams of ambition João Romão thought of everything except Bertoleza: what, at Miranda's dinner, brings her back into the reckoning?

Jerônimo returns from the hospital already planning the beating of Firmo: what does he want to avenge, the razor slashing or Rita?

Jerônimo kills Firmo and then tells Rita he did it for her: what does the text support, that he acts out of love or to remove a rival from his path?

Piedade blames the land and then Rita, never her husband: what leads her to spare Jerônimo, love, habit, or fear of losing everything?

The fight between the two gangs ends when the fire appears and no carapica strikes the rivals in the back: what unites these people, common danger or a code of their own?

João Romão says it would have been an act of justice to take Libório's money and blames the government: does he believe this, or does he need to believe it?

Jerônimo promises to pay for his daughter's schooling and does not: what stops him, lack of money, shame, or fear of crossing Rita?

The Avenida São Romão rises in floors and gains furniture while Piedade sinks: does the text link the two trajectories, or merely place them side by side?

João Romão imagines the marriage as the sum of family, money, and title: what, in that sum, requires Bertoleza to disappear, and what is he willing to lose by it?

The narrator says that "the chain went on": when Pombinha helps Piedade's daughter, is she choosing what she does, or repeating what the environment prepared for her?

João Romão sends the abolitionists to the parlor right after hiding his face: what does the ending ask the reader to put together, the reputation he built or the act he commissioned?

João Romão rises and the tenement grows with him: does the book show his success as merit, as cleverness, or as something paid for by others?

The narrator says the environment transforms Jerônimo, Piedade, and Pombinha: how much room does the book leave for each one's choice?

Miranda envies João Romão and, later, João Romão envies Miranda: what does each one want that the other has?

The tenement unites against the police and then splits between the Carapicus and the Cabeça-de-Gato men: what makes those people unite, and what divides them?

The diploma of honorary member arrives at the very moment of Bertoleza's death: what does the novel want the reader to see in this coincidence?