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 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
As the family arrives back at the bungalow, Perfecto worries about what to do next:
There would be no tomorrow, he knew. He was positive the nurse had called the police […] Without checking his wallet, he made a mental calculation […] Five dollars gave him a quarter of a tank, and he couldn’t decide whether four dollars and seven cents was enough cash to bail out (161).
He tries to reassure himself that the nurse might not have reported the incident, but other concerns, like Petra’s pregnancy, are also weighing on his mind. He considers leaving that same night: “He could not wait for the barn and the money and tomorrow. If he left right this minute, without even turning back, pulled the arrow of pain from his belly, he would have a second chance” (162-63).
Petra is also worrying about the police, and she is losing faith in Perfecto. She wonders why she didn’t try to stop Estrella, but admits that “there was no stopping Estrella, no harnessing the climate of circumstances, no holding back the will of her body” (164). She kneels before her altar, which is decorated with a doily Petra’s grandmother crocheted—a skill Petra now wishes she had. Finding it difficult to pray, Petra takes out an envelope containing documents like her children’s birth and baptismal certificates. When she rises to stand, she accidentally knocks the statue of Jesus off the altar, and its head breaks off. She carries the head with her as she goes out to see Perfecto on the porch, worrying that the lines around the house will not keep scorpions out.
Inside the bungalow, Estrella watches Perfecto, who looks as though he’s crying, and thinks about how Alejo had begged her not to leave him; she felt confident at the time that he would recover, but now she realizes he could die. She overhears the statue break and goes out onto the porch. Petra angrily asks Estrella where she’s going, but then simply hugs her daughter.
Estrella walks to the barn and uses the chain to climb up into the loft. From there, she forces the trapdoor open and “heave[s] herself up into the panorama of the skies as if she were climbing out of a box” (175). Estrella then stands on the roof of the barn, “trust[ing] the soles of her feet, her hands, the shovel of her back, and the pounding bells of her heart” (175).
Chapter 5 Analysis
Under the Feet of Jesus ends much as it began: on a note of uncertainty. As Chapter 5 closes, it’s unclear whether Alejo will live, whether Perfecto will remain with the family, how Petra will manage her pregnancy, and what repercussions Estrella will face for her actions at the clinic. In other words, the characters’ lives are no more stable (and are quite possibly less stable) than they were when the novel started.
Petra and Perfecto both feel this uncertainty deeply, though in different ways. For Perfecto, the situation is paralyzing; although he realizes he could at least extricate himself from possible punishment by leaving immediately, he doesn’t seem able to bring himself to do so. Even this, however, is not so much a moral decision not to leave Petra and her children as it is an inability to choose one way or another: “Lord, he thought, how tired he was. He wanted to rest, to lay down and never get up, and he pressed his hands to his face” (161). Petra, meanwhile, tries to turn to what she has traditionally relied on—her religious faith—but finds that even that is beginning to desert her. The accident involving the statue of Jesus symbolically captures this loss of faith not only in religion, but also in anything that might give her a sense of continuity, reliability, and safety; for instance, the legal documentation of her children’s birth and her own marriage do not seem to provide her with the solace she’s looking for, so she finds herself wishing “she could crochet a row of diamonds to help her get through to tomorrow” (168). Ultimately, however, Petra is forced to confront just how inadequate the things she puts her trust in are: “What made her believe that a circle drawn in the earth would keep the predators away?” (168).
Estrella’s response to the situation is markedly different. As her mother and Perfecto stand helplessly on the porch, she takes action, going to the barn and climbing onto the roof. In a novel with so much imagery related to pregnancy and the female body, Estrella’s emergence from the darkness of the barn into the starlight functions as a kind of birth, and therefore underscores the changes she has gone through over the course of the story: Estrella is now confident in her body and impulses, and is not afraid to take decisive action when the situation demands it. For all its uncertainty, the novel therefore ends on a triumphant note; at least for the moment, Estrella has faith in her own power, and given how precarious her life is, it is what happens in the moment that matters most.
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By Helena Maria Viramontes
