Personification

Giving a thing, an animal, or an abstract idea actions, feelings, or speech proper to a person.

In The Slum

pareciam um punhado de demônios revoltados na sua impotência contra o impassível gigante que os contemplava com desprezo, they looked like a handful of demons raging in their helplessness against the impassive giant that gazed down on them with contempt

The rock is a "giant" and "impassive", and it even "gazes down with contempt" on whoever strikes it: a stone that looks and despises becomes a real adversary, and the men's helplessness takes on epic size.

Chapters III to V: The Tenement Wakes and Romão Hires Jerônimo, the narrator

Parecia rebelar-se contra aquela natureza alcoviteira, que lhe roubara o seu homem para dá-lo a outra, porque a outra era gente do seu peito e ela não, She seemed to rebel against that go-between nature, which had stolen her man to give him to another, because the other was of his own kind and she was not

Chapters XV to XVII: Firmo's Death, Piedade's Fight, and the Fire, the narrator