Gender

Machado's "Rod of Justice" explores power and how freely it is given and taken away. The main character Damiao holds little to no power over his own life. He believes his only way out of a life in the seminary is to make a plea to another in a position of power. Sinha Rita has a unique hold over the male and female characters discussed in the story. Not only does she hold power over her (inferred) lover and Damiao's godfather, Joao Carneiro, but she holds power over the slave girls working for her.

Damiao turns to Sinha Rita because he knows she holds a certain kind of favor with is godfather and, with that favor, a certain amount of power and authority over Joao: "Sinha Rita was a widow, the sweetheart of Joao Carneiro. Damiao had certain vague ideas about this situation and decided to turn it to his advantage" (de Assis 912). Damiao knows that their relationship is such that any request she makes of Joao will be honored; however, whether it is out of love or sexual favor is not fully explored in the text. Later in the story we do see that her power over Joao is strong enough that he decides a physical altercation with Damiao's father is less frightening than incurring Sinha Rita's wrath:

Joao Carneiro was in no hurry to leave, and he could not remain. He was caught between two opposing forces. It really made no difference to him whether his godson ended up a priest, a doctor, a lawyer, or what--even if he turned out to be a good-for-nothing bum and loafer. But, the worst of it was, he was being pushed into a terrible struggle against the most intimate feelings of his friend the boy's father, with no certainty as to the result. If the result proved negative, he would have another fight on his hands with Sinha Rita, whose final words were, “I tell you he is not going back.” There was bound to be a row....Why couldn’t she ask something else of him? (917)

Ultimately he decides to do what Sinha Rita requests and leaves to confront Damiao’s father.

            While it could be assumed Sinha Rita is a sympathetic character who stands up for the weak, she is not. Instead she is just as frightening and unforgiving as Damiao’s father if not more. Perhaps because she is a woman in the late nineteenth century she must wield a sharper sword. When dealing with the young, eleven year old slave girl Lucretia we find Sinha Rita to be quite harsh. The young girl is threatened for laughing at Damiao’s joke and later suffers the rod for not finishing her work before dark. Sinha Rita’s presence is so dominating that when Sinha Rita is set to punish Lucretia, Damiao loses all courage and fetches the rod for her: “Damiao was pricked by an uneasy sense of guilt, but he wanted so much to get out of the seminary! He reached the settee, picked up the rod, and handed it to Sinha Rita” (de Assis 916).

            Sinha Rita operates as less a mediator than an enforcer in the story. She operates as the single force driving the slave girls to finish before dark and as Damiao’s only hope in escaping seminary life. As “his best chance of help” she is only too “eager to show her power over both her lover and her slaves” (Puchner 911). In fact she chooses to help Damiao not because she believes it is the right thing to do or because she pities young Damiao but simply because it is another show of her dominance over those within her circle.

Works Cited

De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado. “The Rod of Justice.” Trans. Helen Caldwell. 1650 To the Present. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3^rd Shorter ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 911-916. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2 vols.

Puchner, Martin. “Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.” 1650 To the Present. Ed. Puchner. Shorter 3^rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 910-911. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2 vols.