1. Marilia
1.1. the 23 year old neighbor of Gloria
1.2. Married to Celso, a security guard at a large food store and also a drug user; they have 3 children together one of whom is a bed bound parapalegic
1.3. attempted to poison her husband by putting rat poison in his morning orange juice but was unsuccesful
1.4. had a horrible childhood
1.4.1. her mother died at a young age and her two siblings got involved in drugs and crime
1.4.2. spent 11 years of her childhood bouncing from one godmother/relative to the other and was abused
1.5. started dating Celso after returning to her father's house from trying to live with a responsible godmothers
1.6. she got pregnant and left her father's house to live with Celso's mother even though their relationship is falling apart
1.7. Celso accused her of cheating with other men so he refused to care for her and their child and goes around cheating on her with other women
1.8. had to find work as a fuxinera to support herself and her first child; the arrival of her sickly second child forced her to ask help from a coroa because Celso was still wasn't supporting her and their 2 children together
1.9. she tried to ask her father's help by returning to his home but he refused
1.10. she stayed with Celso even though she abuses her and cheats on her very often
1.11. her whole entire existence is filled with problems that are "hard to kill"
2. Terror in Duque de Caxias and Black Humor
2.1. a poor-working class neighborhood
2.2. a place where Gloria and her children lived before moving to Felicidade Eterna
2.3. at that time, Gloria was living with Ignacio, one of her lovers, a musician/drummer
2.4. one night while Ignacio was at a gig, two men claiming to have guns and claiming to be looking for a Cesar came to their shack demanding to be let in
2.5. Gloria let the men in to show them there was no Cesar there and that there was nothing valuable to steal
2.6. Anita, Gloria's oldest daughter, and Claudia, her niece was raped by these two men while Gloria and the rest of the children are trapped in a small room
2.7. Gloria was trying to talk the assailants into letting her out of the room to save the two girls when Ignacio got home and tried to reason with the men; they ended up robbing him of his watch and some of their house appliances
2.8. rape was a very serious offense in the favelas that provokes gangs to retaliate and seek vengeance on behalf of the victims; men protect their female relatives from rape because their honor is tied to their ability to prevent such a horrible crime to be done to the females in their family
2.9. using black humor, "laughter out of place", when retelling such events is a way these people deal with the horror of it all
2.10. Soneca's account
2.10.1. Anita was no longer a virgin at that time but Claudia was so she suffered the most damage
2.10.2. Anita was only crying as loud as Claudia so that her mother will not know that she already los her virginity
2.10.3. Anita blamed the rape for her pregnancy with Gabriel's child
2.10.4. Claudia went a little bit crazy and was crying a lot after the event took place
2.11. Black Humor
2.11.1. Soneca would retell the story by emphasizing that Anita faked it all so that GLoria will not find out she was no longer a virgin; she would repeatedly tease Anita about it
2.11.2. however when retelling Claudia's story, Soneca's more serious, saying that Claudia lost the most in that situation
2.11.3. Soneca would laugh while revealing Anita's cowardice and "false cries"
2.11.4. Soneca would also laugh as she recounts the selfishness of Ignacio; how he showed up while the men are still in the process of raping the two girls and how they swiped his wristwatch as a payment for talking too much
2.11.5. the "humorous" retelling of the incident showed the disappointment of the children and Gloria towards Ignacio for being "selfish" and his failure to protect them which pushed Gloria to leave him and move to Felicidade Eterna
3. Mothers and Daughters
3.1. one afternoon with friends, Anita and Gloria used their retelling of the rape and robbery incident to air out their personal issues with each other
3.2. Both Gloria and Anita are disagree on the proper time for a girl to become sexually active
3.3. Anita used the rape to excuse her pregnancy with Gabriel; thinking that the conception was the result of rape, Gloria spent money on trying to abort the pregnancy
3.4. Anita feared Gloria's wrath more than the rapist; Gloria's rule is that if the girls loose their virginity at a young age, they are to leave her house and live in the streets for all she cares
3.5. Gloria wanted her daughters to be married and not get pregnant out of wedlock
3.6. according to Anita, Gloria's excessive talk about loosing their virginity drove her to actually loose it
3.7. None of the children liked Ignacio and they kept on urging their mother to leave him- he hits them when he thinks they're being bad or he would have them hit each other; the selfishness that he was showing after the theft of his wrist watch was the last straw that drove Gloria to leave him
3.8. Gloria believe that if the children are not responsible enough to deal with the repercussions of sex and pregnancy they shouldn't be having sex to begin with; neither Anita nor Gabriel had any source of income that time that Anita got pregnant
3.9. Anita successfully aborted her first child with Gabriel with Gloria's help but later on had another child with him and she began living with him ina common-law marriage
3.10. Gloria uses the retelling of the rape as an opportunity to express her dislike and criticism of teenage pregnancy
4. Rape and Black Humor
4.1. Due to lack of trust in the government and the legal system, the poor women of the favelas deal with rape crime by retelling it with black humor
4.2. because of this inability to deal witht rape crime with justice, women in the poor areas created a subculture of sexuality that doesn't place much importance in one's virginityin order to deal with it
4.3. due to stereotyping, women who are not virgins had a hard time finding justice for a rape crime
4.4. the courts are reluctant to prosecute a crime committed by husbands to their wives as a result of the wife's infidelity
4.4.1. as a result, women takes matter into their own hands to protect themselves; as with the case of Marilia and her attempt to poison Celso for being an abbusive and unfaithful husband