The Theme in the Work
Desire moves the plot of The Slum more than any scheme does. The triangle of Jerônimo, Piedade and Rita Baiana runs through the book from the chorado of chapter VII to the death of Firmo in chapter XV and to Piedade's fall in chapter XX. Around it run the arrangements of the townhouse and the yard: the known and silent adultery of Dona Estela (chapter I, chapter II), the handing of Leocádia to Henrique for the calculation of a wet nurse's job (chapter VIII), Florinda's pregnancy (chapter IX) and the fate of Pombinha, who goes from scribe of the neighbors' letters to courtesan (chapter VI, chapter XI, chapter XXII).
Marriage appears on the other side, as an arrangement of dowry, of position or of peace: that of Miranda (chapter I), that of Pombinha (chapter XII) and the one that João Romão prepares with Zulmira (chapter XXI). Rita refuses it outright (chapter VI).
Desire also undoes and remakes the alliances of the yard. In the samba, the proposal that Jerônimo whispers to Rita provokes Firmo's razor challenge (chapter X); back from the hospital, Jerônimo grips her by the waist, and Firmo swears to avenge himself on both (chapter XIV). After the ambush, Jerônimo tells Rita that he is ready for anything to stay with her (chapter XV), and the two go to live in a tenement in Cidade Nova (chapter XIX).
Desire comes before decision: Jerônimo is seized on contact, without a plan (chapter VIII), and the chorado scene describes him as an effect of the milieu on the man (chapter VII). Marriage, in the book, almost always stands in tension with it, and the text shows the cost on each side without turning it into a lesson: the wife who loses her husband (chapter XVI, chapter XX), the rival who is killed (chapter XV), the bride who marries without spirit (chapter XII). What the scenes leave open is how much of what each character does is their own desire and how much is the place that leads them.
Where It Appears
- Chapter I: Miranda has known of Estela's adultery since his second year of marriage and does not leave her because of the dowry; Romão has Bertoleza as clerk, maidservant and lover.
- Chapter II: The parasite Botelho catches Estela and Henrique in the backyard and, instead of denouncing them, advises them to be more careful.
- Chapter III: Dona Isabel does not marry Pombinha off until she becomes a woman; the laundresses talk about Rita, vanished in revelry with Firmo.
- Chapter VI: Rita says she lives with one man at a time and does not want to marry; Pombinha, the scribe of the neighbors' letters, keeps what each one hides.
- Chapter VII: Firmo's and Porfiro's chorado and Rita's dance hold Jerônimo, who in the early morning feels her hair like a nest of snakes inside him.
- Chapter VIII: Piedade senses danger by instinct when Rita tends to Jerônimo; Leocádia gives herself to Henrique in the shed, asking for a child so she can hire herself out as a wet nurse.
- Chapter IX: Jerônimo becomes Brazilian under Rita's influence; Florinda gets pregnant by the clerk Domingos, and her mother beats her until she says his name.
- Chapter X: At the samba, Jerônimo whispers a proposal to Rita, and Firmo challenges him to a razor fight.
- Chapter XI: Pombinha returns silent from an afternoon at the house of Léonie, where she lived what she cannot say, and wakes in the grass with her first blood of puberty.
- Chapter XII: After Bruno's letter to Leocádia, Pombinha begins to see her fiancé without spirit and only fails to break off the arrangement because of her mother.
- Chapter XIV: Jerônimo, back from the hospital, grips Rita by the waist; Firmo, on learning he has returned, swears to avenge himself on both.
- Chapter XV: Jerônimo kills Firmo with his companions and tells Rita he is ready for anything to stay with her.
- Chapter XVI: Piedade, on learning of Firmo's death, concludes that her husband has left her for Rita for good.
- Chapter XIX: Jerônimo and Rita live their honeymoon in a tenement in Cidade Nova, and Piedade, humiliated, goes to ask him for the money for her daughter's school fees.
- Chapter XX: The Pataca abuses Piedade, drunk, in the kitchen, while her daughter sees it briefly and runs away.
- Chapter XXII: Pombinha, after two years of marriage, goes to live with Léonie and becomes a courtesan.
Passages
Jerônimo sees in Rita the synthesis of what the land has done to him.
Naquela mulata estava o grande mistério, a síntese das impressões que ele recebeu chegando aqui, In that mulata lay the great mystery, the synthesis of the impressions he had received on arriving here
Piedade senses danger by scent, not by reason.
Não era a inteligência nem a razão o que lhe apontava o perigo, mas o instinto, o faro sutil e desconfiado de toda a fêmea pelas outras, quando sente o seu ninho exposto, It was not intelligence or reason that pointed out the danger to her, but instinct, the subtle, suspicious scent of every female toward the others when she feels her nest exposed
Desire comes before the will.
mal, porém, a sua carne lhe tocou na carne, um desejo ardente apossou-se dele, but scarcely had her flesh touched his, an ardent desire seized him
Leocádia gives Henrique a practical reason.
faz-me um filho, que eu preciso alugar-me de ama de leite, make me a child, for I need to hire myself out as a wet nurse
Firmo's jealousy grows with what he has already suffered.
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 open inside him and at once grew like the thirst of a wounded man
Jerônimo offers the crime as proof of love.
estou disposto a tudo para ficar contigo, I am ready for anything to stay with you
What haunts Piedade is the abandonment, not the crime.
Se ele matou o Firmo, dormiu na estalagem e não veio ter comigo, é porque então deixou-me de feita pela Rita!, If he killed Firmo, slept in the tenement and didn't come to me, then he has left me for Rita for good!
Pombinha tried to be the wife her husband needed.
escondeu a sua mal-educada e natural intuição pelo que é grande, ou belo, ou arrojado, e fingiu ligar interesse ao que ele fazia, ao que ele dizia, ao que ele ganhava, she hid her unpolished but natural intuition for what is great, or beautiful, or bold, and pretended to take an interest in what he did, what he said, what he earned