A Escrava Isaura 9.62 · 9.62

Isaura frames her refusal as loyalty to Malvina rather than defense of herself, and calls the thing by its true name: to trade a faithful wife 'por amor de uma pobre escrava' for the ugliest of ingratitudes. She even adopts Leôncio's own hierarchy — 'uma pobre escrava' — placing herself at the bottom of it, not from servility but as the sharpest possible argument: even by your reckoning, she says, this would be shameful. It is the strategy of the powerless everywhere, to turn the master's values against his desires. The word 'ingratidão' quietly reminds him that his wife's love was a gift he is proposing to repay with contempt.

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