The Guarani

The story takes place around 1604, on a fortified estate on the banks of the Paquequer River, in the interior of Rio de Janeiro. It is an isolated house surrounded by dense forest, at a time when the Portuguese colony had barely established itself there.

The man in charge is D. Antônio de Mariz, a Portuguese nobleman who served in the conquest of the land before settling there with his family. The estate works like a small, isolated kingdom, with dependents, hired soldiers and enslaved people, all relying on their own strength to survive.

In this isolated setting José de Alencar builds the rest of the story: inside the house, two daughters, an arrogant son, guests of dubious origin; outside, a forest full of Indigenous peoples, allies and enemies. The tension between inside and outside grows until it explodes.

Peri is a warrior chief of the Goitacá people, strong, agile and loyal enough to give up his free life in the forest just to live near D. Antônio's house and watch over Cecília, whom he calls his lady. He sleeps nearby, eats what is left over, and accepts being treated almost like a servant, without complaint.

The book insists that this devotion is not imposed by anyone: it is his choice. Peri could go back to the forest at any moment, but he prefers to stay near Ceci, learn Portuguese customs and even pray the way white people pray, just to be closer to her.

This devotion has a narrative price: the book treats Peri almost like a European hero dressed as an Indigenous warrior, with a knight's nobility and superhuman strength, closer to the romantic ideal than to a realistic account of seventeenth-century Indigenous peoples.

Cecília, called Ceci, is D. Antônio's youngest daughter, blonde, raised inside the estate, protected from almost every real danger. She treats Peri like an obedient pet, plays at giving orders, calls him my savage, and for much of the story doesn't realize how much she feels for him.

The relationship is unequal from the start: she commands, he obeys; she plays, he truly sacrifices. The book builds this as tenderness, but today it can also be read as a comfortable portrait of the hierarchy between colonizer and colonized, softened by the affection between the two.

Gradually, Ceci realizes that what she feels for Peri is more than friendship, but the book holds back this discovery almost until the end, a classic serial trick to keep readers waiting for the next chapter.