After reading literature that painted women as commodities in the patriarchal world, “The Rod of Justice” illustrates a very different situation. Although typically the female role seems to be submissive to the male, Sinha Rita possesses a certain amount of power over the men in her life -- almost like a role reversal situation. Moreover, she asserts her dominance over the household slaves without the influence of a male master.
Body. Rather than seeing a female character fleeing an uncomfortable environment, de Assis presents Damiao, a young man studying to be a priest. Damiao realizes his male relatives will react with anger and send the poor boy back to the seminary because such running away was not very masculine behavior. However, he determines that his godmother will protect him in the traditional motherly manner. Not only does his assumption prove correct, but the woman vehemently demands that Damiao’s godfather plead with his father for salvation. In fact, she proclaims “‘They’ll find out what I’m made of! No, I won’t stand for any foolishness!’” (de Assis 916). On the other hand, Sinha Rita’s kindness disappears when interacting with her slave, Lucretia. As a woman of power, Sinha Rita turns ice cold when faced with punishing her distracted slave -- all while poor Damiao must appease his godmother to curry favor.
In “The Rod of Justice,” role reversal leads a perceived weak male character crying to his godmother to protect him from his father, godfather, and the seminary. Sinha Rita holds power over the men in this story, creating quite an opposite image compared to this week’s previous readings.
Work Cited
De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado. “The Rod of Justice.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Gen. ed. Martin Puchner. Shorter Third edition. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 911-916. Print.
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