Question: How does treatment toward Macabea reflect the gender roles ans sexuality within Brazil during this period?

Throughout the novel, themes of gender and sexuality in Brazil are present. Macabea, the main character, is an innocent and unaware young woman in Brazilian society. Her virginity is constantly referred to by the narrator and by her ex-boyfriend Olimpico.  For example, there are several times throughout the book where Olimpico says the only reason he is not using bad words to refer to Macabea is because she is a virgin (41; 46; 53). Another time gender and sexuality is brought up is when Macabea asks Olimpico what “elegebra” is, in which he responds that only queers know elegebra (41). When Macabea  further questions Olimpico on topics she learned by listening to the radio that Olimpico didn’t know, Olimpico would question whether a virgin should be saying those words in the first place (46). Sexuality is also mentioned when Macabea gets excited while looking at a photo of Olimpico, in which she responded by praying to calm down. Gender roles are also addressed for men when Olimpico tries to pick Macabea up and drops her, which leads him to feel embarrassed (44). Gender roles for women were evident when Macabea was cleaning herself up after the fall as  she used her skirt and did not want Olimpico to watch her because it was not lady-like (44). All of these examples show that it was excepted for women to be docile, pure, and abstinent. It also shows that men were expected to be physically strong and intelligent.

Question: How does Macabea evolve from alienation- if at all?

Macabea is a complex character in that she is alienated by people that one would generally assume to be including her. Her family and boyfriend have tendencies to alienate her. Not as surprisingly, people outside of her socio-economic class alienate her. In an effort not to spoil anything in the blog post (not sure how far people have read), I will not be giving exact examples. However, Olímpico, the boyfriend, gives the reader a perfect example of alienating Macabea. Her feelings that follow Olímpico and Gloria, as well as Gloria’s feelings are all a result of alienation. This is difficult for the reader to analyze because the question if she can overcome this alienation is present. As the reader, I personally am cheering for Macabea to over come this form of adversity and beat out those who alienated her.

The Hour of The Star is a story about a girl in poverty named Macabea from the state of Alagoas immigrated to Rio de Janeiro and went through a series of changes. Macabea in the book was living aimlessly, poorly educated, and had no family and low self-esteem. To Macabea, she had no idea of what happiness is, and she was also afraid of having those beautiful things in life. As a result, she thought she did not deserve all the good things granted to her. This was why she took the job that was under minimum wage as a typewriter. She was also shocked and anxious when she started dating Olympico.
Growing up under a hopeless place, Macabea lived for nothing, struggled to find happiness and thought herself she was hollow. She had low self-esteem and showed pessimism. I would like to ask some questions regarding Macabea’s story. Macabea provided some counter examples regarding existentialism, as humans always live based on a series of absolute presuppositions to support their empirical experiences. When Macabea interacted with her boyfriend Olympico, he had some absolute presuppositions like people always have dreams and stories about themselves. However, Macabea always responded with that she had nothing to talk about her. Macabea had no absolute presuppositions on those series of life questions. She only had the absolute presupposition that her life was meaningless and blank, so nothing in her life worth exploring. This question worth answering through more discussions, and I am going to learn more on existentialism. I am curious if people who live under a series of absolute presuppositions but all of a sudden lost all of those, and how would people cope with life from scratch?

In the hour of the star why is it that Clarice Lispector writes the main character as a trapped young girl in a life that seems to have already been written out for her?
That she was living in the slums of the big city, that she was written down to be a women who was thought of as nothing. “When I see my horse free and running through the field- I feel like leaning my face against his vigorous and velvety neck and telling him the story of my life.” Also how her and her aunt moved to the city even though we do not know if she was made to move there with her aunt or chose to. But still she and her aunt went to Rio to get a better life and her aunt died and left her to fend for herself, which was not going to give her the best chances for a better life. All that did was keep her down in the lower class, keeping her trapped in this “Pre-written” life of hers.

There is an ongoing discussion in the United States about our justice system and equality, in relation to endemic racism, bias and injustice. It bears the question of just how “American” these problems are. It appears that Brazil is dealing with the same problems at the same level, if not a higher one. While people mainly talk about the Brazilian court system, there does not seem to be much conversation about what goes on within Brazil’s prisons, which has a lot to say about Brazil’s justice system.

Brazil’s prison system is internationally famous for its brutality, violence and injustice. In 2017, the New York Times published an article, documenting Brazil’s “deadly prison system.” Brazilian prisons are often run and dominated by gangs. Rivaling gangs often find themselves within the same walls. This has led to bloodshed, escapes and riots. Torture and sexual violence are also very prevalent.

Riots in Brazilian prisons appear to be quite common. The largest documented riot in a Brazilian prison was the Carandiru Massacre of 1992, where over 100 prisoners were killed. Ironically, the riot was started by a fight over a football game, the brutality and injustice runs so deep, that an event that should add some entertainment and camaraderie ended so violently. Some progress has been made in improving the prison system since then, but only interim solutions have been put in place and trials for the massacre continue today.

Although the cause of all this violent hate is not entirely clear, it may lie in the inequality that exists within society that is carried into prison. For instance, prisoners with degrees, the relatively higher ups in the socio-economic chain among the prison population, get better treatment than those without degrees. They are often given better living spaces and do not have to share cells. Among those in the lower levels of the socio-economic chain, non-violent offenders are usually paired with violent offenders. The problem may also lie in the size of the prisons. Generally, over 600,000 inmates are crowded into prisons built for around 400,000 and it is estimated that around 3,000 inmates are added each month.

There are many similarities between our prison system and Brazil’s. Like in the United States, Brazil’s prison system is predominantly comprised of poor black men. Despite all of the violence, the biggest prison time offenses for that population include drug possession and other non-violent offenses. In addition, legislation passed to help reform the prison system is not sufficiently enforced.

While Brazil’s justice system is interesting to analyze, it may also provide potential solutions. The New York Times offers this potential solution: “Rather than imposing more draconian laws and building new prisons, Brazil needs to enforce existing legislation — including ensuring that suspects are provided hearings within 24 hours of their arrest and expanding the network of public defenders.” The Times also proposes that Brazil come up with new “Strategies to decriminalize drugs, ensure proportional sentencing and provide rehabilitation for offenders.” These potential solutions could benefit not only Brazil, but also the United States. There has been great discussion dealing with the injustice of the U.S. justice system, but change lies within the discussion of potential solutions, and not just the expansion and continuation of a broken system.

Works Cited:

Muggah, Robert, and Ilona Szabó De Carvalho. “Opinion | Brazil’s Deadly Prison System.” The New York Times. January 04, 2017. Accessed February 19, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/opinion/brazils-deadly-prison-system.html.

Contributors, Wikipedia. “Carandiru massacre.” Wikipedia. February 17, 2018. Accessed February 19, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carandiru_massacre.

For my research project, I will be expanding on the Wikipedia article on the Carandiru Massacre of 1992. The issue I see with this article is that while it does give all the facts, the cause, the aftermath and the court case, it does not give a full picture. I want to know exactly why the massacre happened, what events or tensions may have led to it, what people’s reactions to it were, and its impact. Is it taught in schools? Is it covered up? Do prejudice people try to justify it? Was it the first of a kind? What influence and impact did it have? Did anything change after it, for better or for worse?

The article also gives a bullet point list of pop culture documentations of the massacre. However, it gives no detail into how pop culture portrays the massacre? Has it become a trend? Does pop culture take creative license? Is it biased or inaccurate in any way?

The article particularly needs more details of the trail. It gives the fact, but barely touches on the fact that these trials continue today. What implications does this have? From it, I would like to get at least some insight into how Brazil’s justice system operates.

This article gives a good summary of the massacre and, to some degree, lives up to Wikipedia’s title of being a reference source. However, this article could be a much more invaluable resource with more elaboration, research, insight and documentation of the massacre. I hope to research and answer every question I have asked in this post. My goal is to make this article the invaluable resource of a tragic and historically important event that is crucially needs to be.

I have chosen to write my article on Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant. This article has a large content gap; it only has brief biography of Brant. I would like to add more about her diary and create a more extensive biography. This article has no posts on the talk page, giving me a lot of possibilities for this page. This page will improve the coverage of Brazil by the inclusion of youth author. Her diary also gives historians a view into 1890’s life in Brazil therefore making her coverage on Wikipedia important