Sand captains is a book by Bahian writer Jorge Amado and was first published in 1937. He tells the story of street children, in the city of Salvador at the beginning of the 20th century. They are the Captains of the Sand, live in a warehouse and, completely marginalized, survive through theft.
The work features outstanding characters, such as Pedro Bala, Dora, Legless, Boa-Vida, Volta Seca, João Grande, Professor, Gato, Lollipop and Barandão. These boys live the drama of abandonment, and through their life stories, the narrator makes his social criticism, condemns the reformatories, the preconception, the exploitation of the proletarian and all forms of oppression.
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book review Sand captains
![Cover of the book Captains of the Sand, by Jorge Amado, published by Companhia das Letras.[1]](/f/06da0d7ae8ee401930fe651c325afc44.jpg)
Work environment Sand captains
The work Sand captains é set in Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia. Therefore, it shows the reality of an urban environment in the
first half of the 20th century, on the eve of the decree of the Estado Novo, in 1937.Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
plot of the work Sand captains
The Captains of the Sand are street children who live in a warehouse. They survive through theft and behave, precociously, like adults. The group's leader is Pedro Bala, a 15-year-old boy who has a scar on his face, the son of a stevedore (called by his companions, Blondie) who died during a strike.
They are seen by Salvador society as dangerous and, therefore, they are sought out by the police, who intend to place them in reformatories, where they are victims of more violence. But among the boys in the group, the characters Pedro Bala, Dora, Legless, Boa-Vida, Volta Seca, João Grande, Professor, Gato, Lollipop and Barandão are highlighted in the work.
Pedro Bala meets the stevedore John of Adam on the docks. He met Pedro's father and tells the boy that Blond was a striker who died shot there on the docks. At the time, Pedro was 4 years old and, therefore, he no longer remembers his father. But the pride of being the son of a revolutionary leader grows in him.
Another adult person who lives amicably with the boys is the mother of saint DonAninha. On one occasion, she will ask Pedro Bala to retrieve the image of Ogun that the police had taken during a raid in a candomblé. With the help of Professor, he devises a plan and takes the image from Police Headquarters.
Father José Pedro is another friend of the group and tries to help the boys in her own way. As Lollipop is given to Church things, the priest wants to get him a place in a seminary. Under the influence of the priest, the boy changes his behavior and loses the “fame of being one of the meanest of the group”.
In order to steal a house, the Captains of the Sands use Legless to gain the owner's trust.. He tries to soften the woman: “I have no one in the world, I'm crippled, I can't work very hard, it's been two days since I've eaten and I have nowhere to sleep”.
As Dona Ester lost a son who was Legless's age, she transfers her mother's affection to him. It is home to Legless, who, for the first time, feels the comfort of belonging to a family. É treated with affection by the woman, as if it were really her son, and she doesn't want to abandon that life.
However, days later, Pedro Bala appears, and Legless finds himself obliged to fulfill the agreement. But is with a lot of suffering that he betrays his new mother, she returns to the warehouse, and some members of the group, including Pedro Bala, invade the house and steal gold and silver objects.
during an epidemic of a type of smallpox, alastrim, Dora and her brother Zé Fuinha are orphans and end up going to the warehouse by the hands of João Grande and Professor. At first, she runs the risk of being raped. She is defended by João Grande and Professor, while the other boys prepare to fight for her possession.
Pedro Bala, upon arriving at the warehouse, resolves the issue, takes the side of João Grande and Professor. Over time, Dora comes to be respected by the group and she arouses other feelings in the Captains of the Sands, as she begins to be seen as if she were their mother. Although, Pedro Bala and she fall in love.
She proceeds to steal with them, dressed as a boy and treated equally, until they are arrested. Pedro Bala is sent to a reformatory, and Dora to an orphanage. In the reformatory, the head of the Captains of the Sands is tortured. Dora, on the other hand, falls ill and is on the brink of death. When Pedro Bala manages to escape, he and others in the group remove the girl from the orphanage.
Lastly:
Dora, sick, he ends up dying, but before handing himself over to Pedro Bala. Legless, after breaking into a house, so as not to be caught by the guards, he jumps and “bursts himself up on the mountain like a circus trapeze artist who hasn't reached the other trapeze”.
Lollipop he joins the Order of Capuchin Friars.
Teacher, helped by a poet, goes to Rio de Janeiro and becomes a painter of pictures.
back dry turns into cangaceiro.
Cat he becomes a crook and moves to Ilhéus to extract money from the colonels.
Big John turns into a sailor.
Good Life he indulges in the bohemian life, he is “another rascal on the streets of Bahia”.
PeterBullet he follows the path of revolution, “commands a shock brigade formed by the Captains of the Sands”, who “intervene in rallies, strikes, workers' struggles”. But, in the end, he leaves the group and the warehouse, lets Barandão be the new leader and becomes a “proletarian militant”, persecuted by the police for being a striker and leader of illegal parties, that is, a revolutionary.
See too: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - summary and analysis of the work
Structure of the work Sand captains
The book is divided into four parts:
Letters to the newsroom:
Thieving children;
Letter from the Secretary of the Chief of Police to the editorial staff of Afternoon Newspaper;
Letter from the Judge of Minors to the editorial staff of the Afternoon Newspaper;
Letter from a mother, seamstress, to the writing of the Afternoon Newspaper;
Letter from Father José Pedro to the editorial staff of Afternoon Newspaper;
Letter from the director of the reformatory to the writing of the Afternoon Newspaper;
Under the Moon in an old abandoned warehouse:
The warehouse;
Night of the Captains of the Sand;
Point of the cherry trees;
Carousel lights;
Docks;
Adventure of Ogun;
God smiles like a little black boy;
Family;
Morning like a picture;
Alastrim;
Destiny.
Night of great peace, great peace of your eyes:
Daughter of pockmarked;
Dora, mother;
Dora, sister and bride;
Reformatory;
Orphanage;
Night of great peace;
Dora, wife;
Like a star with a blonde hair.
Song of Bahia, song of freedom:
Vocations;
Vitalina's love song;
On the tail of a train;
Like a circus trapeze artist;
Newspaper news;
Companions;
The drums resound like war bugles;
... A homeland and a family.
characters from the book Sand captains
- Pedro Bala
- Dora
- Dry Return
- Teacher
- cat
- Good Life
- No legs
- Lollipop
- Big John
- Barandão
- Admiral
- Joe Weasel
- Ezekiel
- Dona Aninha
- Father José Pedro
- Dalva
- Dear of God
- Blonde
- John of Adam
- Alberto
- Gonzalez
- Rannulf
- Mrs. Esther
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book social review Sand captains
The work begins with the reproduction of a biased reporting on the Captains of the Sands, followed by letters sent to the Afternoon Newspaper, who published this article, which has the following call:
"The sinister adventures of the "Captains of the Sand" — The city infested by children living off theft — The Juvenile Judge and the Chief of Police must take action — Yesterday there was another robbery."
In sequence, we see the Chief of Police disclaiming any responsibility and passing the problem to the Juvenile Judge, who, in turn, "takes the body out" and devolves responsibility to the Chief of Police. Thus, both the report and the letters seem very real.
In fact, the letter sent by a mother to the newspaper's editorial office shows the reality of poor people, target of control by state authorities. She speaks of the real situation in the reformatories where the Juvenile Judge “sent the poor”. In this letter, she denounces the inhumane treatment that minors suffer in these places.
In this way, it is possible to perceive a criticism of the behavior of Brazilian authorities, who do not exercise their position competently and adequately. In this way, street children are left unprotected by the State and, when they are taken to reform schools, they suffer all kinds of violence.
The book presents a language that, at times, becomes poetic, as in other works by the author. This is what we can see when the narrator introduces the head of the Captains of the Sand — Pedro Bala — and the other street children who live in the warehouse:
"Dressed in rags, dirty, semi-starved, aggressive, swearing and smoking cigarette butts, they were, in fact, the owners of the city, those who knew it totally, those who totally loved it, their poets.”
This is accompanied by the complaint of the reality of these children, who live in marginality and use the colloquial language of the streets. Most of them use a code name, which reveals their lack of identity or citizenship, but it is also a form of protection, as this makes identification difficult by the police.
Due to the conditions in which they live, these boys are forced to put their childhood aside and end up acquiring the smarts of adults, in order to survive. And, at an early age, sexuality is freely experienced. The character Gato, for example, is 14 years old and gets involved with Dalva, a prostitute around 35 years old.
And when Boa-Vida meets him, homoerotic desire also arises, because the
"Cat had a petulant air, and although he was not an effeminate beauty, he liked the Good Life, who, on top of that, was not very lucky with women, as he looked much younger than 13."
Cat, however, likes to walk “the streets of women”, where the prostitutes look at him and know “that a of those crooks who fill a woman's life, who take money from her, hit her, but also give a lot love". Thus, the characters in the work are marginalized beings who live in precarious conditions.
For this reason, they end up being more instinctive than rational, a feature deterministic typical of 1930s Generation works. They act like animals, so women are subjected to men by violence. Thus, it is evident the machismo that reigns among boys and which culminates in the shocking rape of a young black woman by Pedro Bala.
Machismo also reigns in the rules of conviviality at the warehouse. One of them is the non-admission of “liabilities” in the group. Thus, when chief Pedro Bala sees that “a boy was getting up and cautiously approaching Lollipop's corner”, he thinks that it is “a case of pederasty" and, therefore, "was careful to expel the group's liabilities, as one of the group's laws was that they would not admit pederasts liabilities”.
But in this macho environment, Dora appears, who ends up conquering a place of equality among the Captains of the Sand:
“I walked with them through the streets, like one of the Captains of the Sands. He no longer found the city an enemy. Now he loved her too, learning to walk in the alleys, on the slopes, to ride on trams, in racing cars. He was agile like the most agile. [...]. Big João wouldn't let go of her, he was like a shadow of Dora, and he drooled with satisfaction when she called to him with her voice of my brother. [...]. He almost thought she was as brave as Pedro Bala.”
In this work, the Church is also the target of criticism from the storyteller. Through Father José Pedro, who lives in conflict with his faith, even being compared to a communist, the hypocrisy and corruption of his colleagues are evidenced. Thus, Father José Pedro, unlike them, is a friend of the Capitães da Areia and is concerned about helping these boys.
He even takes part of a cash donation to the church so the boys can ride a carousel. At this point, the narrator shows that, despite their precocious attitude, boys still have childish desires. In addition, the work conveys the idea that, if they had opportunities, they could be someone in life. This is the case of Professor, who has a talent for drawing, but does not have the necessary help to develop his gift.
The book, therefore, is full of sociopolitical themes, and one of them is the exploration question capitalist, which generates heroes, such as Pedro Bala's father, called by his colleagues, Blond. He was a docker and died fighting for his rights when he was shot during a strike.
THE culture Afro-Brazilian is also focused on narrative, mainly through the figure of the saint's mother Don'Aninha, who is indignant with the police raids in Candomblé:
“—They don't let the poor live... They don't even leave the god of the poor alone. Poor people can't dance, can't sing to their god, can't ask their god for a grace.” His voice was bitter, a voice that didn't sound like the mother of saint Don'Aninha. — They are not content to starve the poor... Now they take the saints out of the poor... — and raised his fists."
Pedro Bala's imprisonment in the reformatory, where he is subjected to torture, shows the situation of the Brazilian prison system, whether from periods of dictatorship or not. Thus, Pedro Bala is an ordinary prisoner, but he resembles a political prisoner. In this way, the book ends with an evident criticism of capitalism and oppression, but it also brings a utopian hope:
“[...] Comrade Pedro Bala, who was persecuted by the police in five states as an organizer of strikes, as a leader of illegal parties, as a dangerous enemy of the established order.
In the year that all mouths were prevented from speaking, in the year that it was all a night of terror, these newspapers (only mouths that still spoke) clamored for the freedom of Pedro Bala, leader of his class, who was imprisoned in a colony.
And on the day he fled, in countless homes, at the poor hour of dinner, faces lit up when they heard the news. And despite the terror out there, any of those homes was a home that would open up to Pedro Bala, a fugitive from the police. Because the revolution is a homeland and a family.”
Thus, the social criticism of the work did not please the government of Getulio Vargas (1882-1954), and the first edition was banned. In addition, some of its copies were burned in a public square in the city of Salvador. But the book returned to circulation in 1944, in a second edition.
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Jorge Amado
Jorge Amadowas born on August 10, 1912, in Itabuna, Bahia. He attended law school in Rio de Janeiro, but never practiced. After separating from his first wife, he married the writer Zélia Gattai (1916-2008). In 1945, was elected federal deputy for São Paulo, after going into exile in Argentina and Uruguay between 1941 and 1942.
In 1948, went into exile in Paris and then in Prague. four years later, returned to Brazil to dedicate himself exclusively to literature. Thus, he was one of the few Brazilian writers to live with copyright alone. Furthermore, the author, who passed away on August 6, 2001, in Salvador, won several literary awards and was a member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras.
Belonging to the 1930 Generation of the Modernism Brazilian, produced works characterized by regionalist, realist and sociopolitical themes, but with dynamic and attractive plots. In addition, his books present colloquial language, eroticism and elements of Brazilian popular culture.
Book summary Sand captains
→ book review Sand captains:
Work environment Sand captains:
- City of Salvador, in the first half of the 20th century.
plot of the work Sand captains:
- João de Adão tells the story of Pedro Bala's father.
- Pedro Bala recovers the image of Ogun for Don’Aninha.
- Father José Pedro wants Lollipop to go to a seminary.
- Legless will live in Dona Ester's house.
- The Captains of the Sand steal objects from Dona Ester's house.
- Dora and Zé Fuinha are orphaned after the alastrim epidemic.
- Dora and Zé Fuinha are going to live in the warehouse.
- Dora and Pedro Bala fall in love.
- Pedro Bala is arrested and tortured in a reformatory.
- Dora falls ill in an orphanage.
- Pedro Bala escapes from the reformatory and rescues Dora.
- Dora dies.
- Legless kills himself.
- Lollipop joins the Order of Capuchin Friars.
- Teacher goes to Rio de Janeiro to be a painting painter.
- Volta Seca becomes a cangaceiro.
- Gato becomes a crook and moves to Ilhéus.
- João Grande becomes a sailor.
- Good-Life falls into trickery.
- Barandão becomes the new leader of the Captains of the Sands.
- Pedro Bala becomes a revolutionary.
characters from the book Sand captains: Pedro Bala, Dora, Volta Seca, Teacher, Cat, Good Life, Legless, Lollipop, João Grande, Barandão, Almiro, Zé Fuinha, Ezequiel, Don'Aninha, Father José Pedro, Dalva, Beloved of God, Blond, João de Adão, Alberto, Gonzalez, Ranulfo, Dona Ester.
book social review Sand captains:
- denouncing the inhumane treatment of poor children in reformatories;
- denunciation of the authorities' disregard for the reality of street children;
- verification of the invisibility of minors living on the streets;
- verification of the precocious sexuality of minors living on the streets;
- exposition of machismo in Brazilian society and among the Capitães da Areia;
- presentation of the Church as a corrupt and hypocritical institution;
- denunciation of capitalist exploitation and oppression of the proletariat;
- denunciation of disrespect for Afro-Brazilian religions;
- exposure of authoritarianism and torture, contrary to Human Rights.
→ Jorge Amado:
- Birth: August 10, 1912, in Itabuna.
- Literary style: Modernism, 1930s generation.
- Spouse: writer Zélia Gattai.
- Exile in Argentina, Uruguay, Paris and Prague.
- Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
- Death: August 6, 2001, in Salvador.
Image credit
[1] Company of Letters (reproduction)
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
