Under the Feet of Jesus Chapter Three Summary & Analysis

Summary: Chapter Three

Alejo has begun to suffer from bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. By now, he and Gumecindo should be heading back to Texas to start school, but Alejo is too sick to travel. Petra decides to take Alejo in and care for him, so Gumecindo can leave. Perfecto believes that the burden will be too much, and that Alejo will not be helped by Petra’s prayers and folk remedies. Petra sees Alejo’s condition as a test: will she do for someone else what she would want others to do for one of her children? She and Perfecto set up a bed for Alejo and nurse him through his recovery. Alejo sleeps well, and when he wakes, he begins to believe he will not die. Perfecto, meanwhile, continues to think of going home. He longs to stay with Petra. Perfecto can tell she is pregnant, but in his dreams, Mercedes calls to him. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and by omens of death. Maggots have been emerging from the mud at his feet, and Perfecto feels sure that Alejo does not have long to live.

The station wagon needs a new battery. With the money from the barn demolition, Perfecto will be able to buy one. His mechanical skills are what brought him and Petra together a couple of years ago. She and the children had entered a store to buy groceries. Perfecto was in the attached garage out back, fixing the shopkeeper’s car as payment for the items Perfecto needed. Having finished his work, Perfecto came into the shop just in time to help Petra select some garlic and collect the bulbs that spilled. Their attraction was mutual and immediate, despite the age difference.

Petra wakes up next to Perfecto. She snuggles against him and thinks fondly of their life together. In the other room, she hears Alejo and Estrella speak intimately, as if they, too, are a couple. From their conversation, Petra knows they, too, are lying close together. She is not happy to think of Estrella becoming a woman, with a life of her own and a man of her own, but Petra knows she cannot hold time back. She throws on some clothes and goes out to begin making tortillas and preparing lunches. Soon Estrella will have her first period, Petra thinks. Perfecto and Estrella come out of the house. Petra feeds them breakfast and tells Estrella that she and Alejo make too much noise when they talk. “That’s how it all starts.” Estrella is surprised that Petra is upset. Perfecto, meanwhile, is still hoping Estrella will help him take the barn down.

Petra continues to try to nurse Alejo back to health, but although he does not get worse, he does not get better, either. Meanwhile, she suffers from morning sickness. Perfecto has grown emotionally distant. Petra feels as though she has failed the test put before her. Estrella sleeps with Petra now. Petra fears for the health of the child growing inside her. She worries that it may be born deformed.

At the end of another long day, as Estrella helps Perfecto lance an infected boil on his foot, they talk about the barn and the money to be earned tearing it down. Estrella agrees to help with the barn, on the condition that with the money, they get proper medical attention for Alejo. The next day, however, as the family is driving Alejo to the clinic, the car gets stuck in mud. Perfecto and Estrella are unable to free the car.

Analysis: Chapter Three

This section of the novel deals extensively with the theme of illness, especially illness caused by agricultural labor. Alejo’s sickness dominates the lives of the family, especially Petra and Estrella. Perfecto dreams of illness, “his veins like irrigation canals clogged with dying insects,” an image that suggests to the reader that he knows what goes unspoken about Alejo’s sickness: that the boy has been poisoned by the pesticide spray that Perfecto watched kill the insects in the fields. Petra insists on caring for Alejo, but Perfecto argues that she herself is not well enough to take on the task, as working in the fields has left her with circulation problems that make it hard to stand up. In addition, Petra is pregnant, which she experiences primarily as symptoms of illness. While considering that Estrella will likely begin menstruation soon, Petra reflects on her own first period and her belief that she was bleeding to death. Her childhood memories are full of fears of illness, and in her adult life she is tasked with managing illnesses. During this scene of reflection, she pounds garlic to make the medicine she uses to manage the pain she endures from a lifetime of harvesting to feed her family.

The food market scene in this chapter presents another example of irony in the novel. The family works harvesting food and is therefore constantly surrounded by images of plenty: ripe peaches, fragrant tomatoes, grapes heavy with juice. However, the capitalist agricultural system denies them access to the bounty they work to create and bring to market. In the market, in contrast, even the touch of their hands lowers the value of the goods, as indicated by the proprietor’s disapproval of children coming into the store. While their lives in the fields show the abundance of food in the United States, Petra cannot afford to buy the food she wants for her family. Money is not the only barrier standing between them and this bounty. The produce in the store is described as “relics,” bruised and soft in contrast to the firm fruits and vegetables they harvest in the field. Throughout the novel, farmworkers are denied access to the prosperity they create with their labor.

While they are shopping, Perfecto helps Petra find fresh garlic, an example of his role in her life as a savior, even in this first meeting. Garlic is particularly important for Petra to buy since she uses it as medicine. While the garlic on the top of the bin has signs of age, Petra knows there is fresh garlic at the bottom, hidden so that less savvy shoppers will settle for the substandard bulbs on top. She struggles to reach the good bulbs until Perfecto’s powerful hand, consistently used in the novel as a symbol of his strength and competence, brings her the fresh bulbs she describes as blessed by “La Virgen,” with the poster of Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe tacked above the garlic bin. Petra insists that the fresh bulbs smell of roses, a reference to the roses traditionally depicted surrounding the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this way, Viramontes suggests that Perfecto’s arrival is to Petra a kind of religious visitation, an example of God sending help in her hour of need.

Throughout the story, the power of women is expressed through maternal care. In this chapter, Viramontes shows that care extending beyond the nuclear family to the community of migrant workers. Petra argues to Perfecto that Alejo should stay with them because he is too sick to travel home with Gumecindo. Perfecto believes Alejo is too sick to be cured by Petra, but Petra sees caring for Alejo as important because of the care itself, not as a means to cure Alejo. She does not argue that she can cure him but rather that “it’s not good to leave people behind.” She tells him that she would want her children to be cared for if they were sick, showing that the maternal care is what matters to her, not the end of the illness itself. She describes the illness as a test from God, underscoring the theme throughout the book that misfortunes are things to endure and survive through faith and mutual care. She cares for Alejo “not because of who he was, but because she was a mother.” Mothering of this kind is so important to Petra that she refuses to obey Perfecto when he first pleads and then orders her not to take on Alejo’s care. Petra loves and depends upon Perfecto, and her subversion here is a major contrast to her usual loyal deference.

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