Gender

Gender plays an important role in Juaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s short story “The Rod of Justice,” but unlike many other selections from this era, the story features a role reversal where power is held by the female figures and the male figures are virtually powerless.

“The Rod of Justice” centers around a male protagonist, Damiao, a young man who is attempting to escape a life of priesthood. Fleeing the seminary, Damiao considers his options for help but realizes the male figures of his life would force him to return to his abandoned path. Finally he realizes he can find refuge with his godfather’s sweetheart: “I’ll go beg Sinha Rita to protect me! She will send for my godfather, tell him that she wants me to leave the seminary… Maybe…” (912). Where Damiao cannot count on his father or godfather to see things from his perspective, he hopes Rita can convince them in his favor.

Rita proves to be the most powerful figure of the narrative. As Damiao hopes, she takes up his cause and demands to Damiao’s godfather: “Get along, Joao Carneiro, your godson is not going back to the seminary. I tell you he is not going back…” (914). Instead of asserting his male authority over Rita, the godfather struggles with the postion he has been put in, eventually realizing “There was no help for it. The barber put the razor in its case, girded on his sword, and sallied forth to battle” (914). Because Rita is the authority figure of the story, Joao Carneiro has no choice but to follow her instructions, even though he has no desire to argue Damiao’s case for him.

Rita’s authority is not just over the male figures of the story. She holds the ultimate authority of any characters presented. At first it appears her authority over the other women present is that of a master over slaves, although she attempts to undermine this relationship: “To cover up the authority with which she had given these orders, she explained to the youth that Senhor Joao Carneiro had been a friend of her dead husband and had got some of these slaves as pupils” (913). Instead of being a master over the slaves, she changes the relationship to that of teacher over students. Yet, when one of the “pupils” fails to perform their work, she asserts authority over them in the master/slave relationship, “call[ing] out in a threatening voice, ‘Lucretia, mind the rod!”’ (913). However, the slaves/pupils are not the only characters who look up to Rita, allowing her a greater amount of power. She is visited by other young women in the neighborhood who look up to her and consider her “mistress of all this womenfolk – slaves of her own household and from outside” (915). Regardless the status or gender of the other characters, Rita is the true authority figure.

Ultimately, the power Rita holds over the other characters is equivalent to the authority she holds over the slaves. She is able to command Joao Carneiro to go to Damiao’s father and insist Damiao not return to the priesthood. More powerful an image, however, is the end of the story, where Rita commands Damiao to collect the rod for use against Lucretia, who has failed to perform her tasks acceptably. Despite Damiao’s seminary training and knowledge that Lucretia’s shortcoming is due to his presence, Damiao “reached the settee, picked up the rod, and handed it to Sinha Rita” (916). The audience can determine not only what happens next to Lucretia, but the fate that potentially falls any other character, male, female, or slave, if they fail to follow Rita’s authority.

Works Cited

Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria. “The Rod of Justice”. Trans. Helen Caldwell. Eds. Suzanne Akbari, Wiebke Denecke, Vinay Dharwadker, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Levine, Pericles Lewis, Emily Wilson. Shorter 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 911-916. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen ed. 2 vols.