A Escrava Isaura 2.93 · 2.93

Here is the sentence's beautiful, appalling sophistry: 'Ella aqui é livre, mais livre do que eu mesma' — here she is free, freer than I am. The old woman genuinely believes it. In her house Isaura has no labour, no want, no fear, while she herself is chained by age and infirmity — so who, she asks, is really the freer? It is a real feeling and a total confusion: she mistakes comfort for liberty, and mistakes her own bodily decline for a bondage equal to Isaura's legal one. She can be old and unfree in her body; she cannot be sold, cannot be taken, cannot be owned. The 'coitada de mim', poor me, is sincere self-pity — and it is exactly the sentiment that lets the comfortable keep the caged, by persuading themselves the cage is kind.

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