49 pages • 1 hour read
Helena Maria ViramontesUnder The Feet Of Jesus
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1995A 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 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
After hours spent freeing the car from the mud, the family finally arrives at a run-down clinic: “All this, just to arrive at a heap of aluminum foil and missing tires” (135). They help Alejo inside, and as they wait for someone to appear to help them, Perfecto “read[s] the room for signs of disrepair so that he could barter his services for theirs” (136). Petra, meanwhile, looks at a scale and a jar full of cotton balls and thinks about how she used to dampen the cotton she picked to make it weigh more.
Finally, a nurse enters the room, and Estrella explains that Alejo is sick. The nurse begins to question the family about Alejo’s last name and family, and they lie and say he’s Petra’s nephew. There’s no doctor in the clinic, so the nurse weighs and examines him, asking why they didn’t bring Alejo in sooner, and announcing that she thinks he has dysentery and needs hospitalization.
The family discusses this among themselves, worried about how they will pay and whether Alejo is documented. As Perfecto and Petra express reservations about taking Alejo to the hospital, the nurse says she will only charge the family $10 for the visit. Petra is outraged at the cost, and Perfecto is reluctant to spend all the money he has ($9.07), instead offering to fix the clinic’s toilet and porch. Eventually, however, Perfecto is forced to give her the money.
Alejo initially says he wants to go home, but Estrella is adamant that he receive treatment. The nurse tries to usher the family out of the clinic so she can close up, but Estrella knows that, having spent all their money, they won’t be able to make it to the hospital: “She tried to make her mind work, tried to imagine them back on the road with an empty gas tank and wallet and Alejo too sick to talk” (147). She grows more and more frustrated as she thinks about the nurse’s rejection of Perfecto’s offer, and eventually fetches a crowbar from the car. She threatens the nurse, who returns the family’s money.
At a gas station, Perfecto pays $5 for a quarter tank. Alejo worries that Estrella hurt the nurse; she doesn’t answer directly, but says that “they make you that way” (152). In response, Alejo argues that Estrella is giving “them” what they want, but Estrella insists that they are trying to “take [Alejo’s] heart” (153). Petra says the nurse won’t contact the police “if she knows what’s good for her,” and Estrella says that she and Perfecto will begin dismantling the barn the next day (153). Ricky is hopeful that they’ll be able to stay where they are; Perfecto thinks guiltily about his plans to leave.
They reach the hospital, and Perfecto instructs Estrella to leave Alejo there, reassuring her that the doctors will take care of him. She thanks him before leaving the car, and Perfecto is touched. As Estrella exits the hospital, she catches sight of the twins in the car and spreads her arms wide so that the hospital’s automatic doors “split open before her as if obeying her command” (156). Back in the station wagon, the twins fall asleep nestled on either side of her as the family drives home.
Chapter 4 Analysis
As the only major character in the novel who exists outside the economy of migrant labor, the nurse in many ways stands in for America at-large. As such, she bears the brunt of Viramontes’s critique of a society that relies on migrant labor to provide basic necessities like food, but which has no interest in the well-being of the actual workers themselves. Although the nurse does examine and diagnose Alejo, the care she provides is artificial, as is her overall appearance: her reference to Alejo as a “sweet thing” seems patronizing, and she strikes Petra as “too clean, too white just like the imitation cotton” (139, 141). Most importantly, she doesn’t actually treat Alejo, instead simply pointing the family in the direction of the hospital. While this isn’t in and of itself the nurse’s fault, it speaks to the injustice of the overall system that she’s part of; as Estrella notes, it seems “unfair” that the family has to surrender all their money to “pay for what the mother said they already knew” (that Alejo needs a doctor), particularly given all that they themselves have done for society (147). In fact, as Estrella sees it, the nurse is actually in the family’s debt, making Estrella’s decision to take back their money completely justified.
Alejo himself doesn’t exactly disagree with Estrella’s assessment, but he does have the foresight to realize how Estrella’s actions will be interpreted—namely, as proof that she and other migrant workers are criminal and dangerous. For Alejo, it’s important to maintain the moral high ground, even at a cost to himself; he tells Estrella that he isn’t “worth it” (152). The novel itself, however, is more approving of Estrella’s decision. As Estrella tells Alejo, his line of reasoning ends in society taking their “hearts”—that is, both their literal lives and their ability to find joy and meaning in life.
Significantly, Estrella is the only character to both realize this and act on it. Although the rest of the family is unhappy with the treatment they receive in the clinic, they don’t seem capable of doing anything about it. This becomes particularly clear when Estrella directly asks Perfecto what they ought to do about the hospital: “Perfecto rubbed the baldness of his head. Why wasn’t he wearing his hat? Damn if he couldn’t remember if he left it in the car or in the house” (143). Perfecto’s missing hat has already surfaced in connection to his absorption in the past and his thoughts of abandoning the family, and its appearance at this moment underscores that the family is no longer able to rely on Perfecto; asked directly for advice, he retreats into indecision and detachment. Instead, it is Estrella who takes action. The fact that she uses one of Perfecto’s tools to do so highlights the novel’s feminist leanings; in a moment of action, it is a female character who emerges as a leader, while wielding a tool traditionally used by a man. The imagery at the end of the chapter further emphasizes this point, with Estrella emerging from the hospital as a victorious and almost supernaturally-powerful figure. In fact, the description of Estrella “part[ing] the doors like a sea of glass” is an allusion to the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, implying that Estrella has taken the place of the religious patriarch (156).
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By Helena Maria Viramontes
