59 pages • 1 hour read
Nancy Scheper-HughesDeath Without Weeping
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “O Nordeste: Sweetness and Death”
The first chapter of the book describes the sugar plantations of the Brazilian Northeast, focusing on the harshness of life for its residents. In the opening paragraph, the northeast is described two ways: by Roger Bastide as a "land of contrasts," and by Josue de Castro, as "600,000 square miles of suffering" (31).
The author lists a host of health, social and economic problems, yet the main argument from this chapter ties these myriad issues, and the misery they combine to form, to the industrial-scale cultivation of a single crop―sugar. The author argues that the cultivation of sugar on such a massive scale is a "monoculture," one that damages and distorts the populace around it. Fueling this violence, the author cites, was the new Western European and North American appetite for cheap sugar. Cycles of poverty are one such effect, yet in this chapter, Scheper-Hughes describes a virtual caste system, which began in slavery and continued past emancipation. Indian—and, later, African—slaves were at the lowest rung of this system, providing labor for the vast plantations. Following emancipation, government incentives and foreign capital led to the construction of sugar factories, called usinas. Although workers were no longer slaves, the intense political repression of the mid-20th century did little to improve their lot. Between the bare life of sugar production, frequent health crises, and political repression, life in the Northeast remained hard, particularly for women. As grim situations such as Lordes's testify to, infant mortality and complications from pregnancy remain stubbornly high.
Biu, Lordes's sister, ekes out a living as an unlicensed worker, or clandestina, in the sugarcane fields. Nevertheless, the owners and managers at the local usina presents the sugarcane factories in a glowing, utopian light. On a visit to the Agua Preta factory, the author meets with and discusses life with a manager, Dr. Alfonso, who deflects her questions on the destructive inequality and deadly exploitation of sugarcane production, arguing that the presence of this industry has been a net gain.
Chapter 1 Analysis
The ostensible argument of this chapter is that the industrial cultivation of sugarcane in Northeastern Brazil is exploitative, deadly, and destructive: engendered by the Western desire for cheap sugar, enabled by slavery, and intensified by international capital and political repression. However, the implication of this argument goes beyond these considerable observations. To reiterate, the claim is that the cultivation of sugar is not incidentally harsh or dangerous, but a form of normalized, state-sanctioned violence. The effect of this violence is a kind of cyclical, ambient trauma, visible throughout the entire community.
The sweetness of the sugar bound for export is contrasted with the indescribable suffering of those whose labor brings it to fruition. The history of its cultivation is tied with varying forms of exploitation: from the abdication and enslavement of natives by Portuguese colonists to the importation of African slaves, the history of industrial sugar production is treated as a continuous, dehumanizing trauma. One central element of this dehumanization, the author argues, is a cheapening of human life. Although the author does not explicitly equate wage labor with slavery, the implicit argument ties these social systems together as forms of class-based violence and repression.
