A Escrava Isaura 10.11 · 10.11

Álvaro's praise climbs a rising ladder — fada, anjo, deosa, fairy, angel, goddess — and the last word rings with an irony only the reader can hear: Leôncio, in Cap IX, promised to make Isaura 'a deosa desta casa', the goddess of his house, as a bribe for her surrender. The same word, in Álvaro's mouth, is pure disinterested wonder. Guimarães sets the two men's identical vocabulary side by side to show how the same feeling divides into worship and appetite depending on the heart that holds it. Álvaro insists 'não é uma mulher' — she is not a woman — meaning she is more; the tragedy the reader feels is that the law says she is less, not a woman but a thing. Every hyperbole of his love brushes against the fact of her bondage.

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