Death Without Weeping Summary

Reading critique: Death Without Weeping Death Without Weeping is a book which is wrote by Nancy Scheper – Hughes. The author focused more in describing and analyzing the situation in the Shantytown Bom Jesus da Mata in Brazil. Based on her experience, she explains the high infant mortality rate, the economic conditions, and the impact that is has in the population of this area, especially the mothers. According to the article, “Approximately one million children in brazil under the age of five die each year.” So, it is usual to see children died in these areas (mostly in shantytowns on the periphery of urban life). In my opinion, the high infant mortality rate is due to a lack of care. These babies are left home without any supervision

One reason why these children live in these conditions is because of economic conditions. Even if their mother wants to take care of their children and to stay with them, they cannot because they must work to survive and feed the other kids. They live in dangerous situation, where they fight to survive in an unfriendly environment. This article starts by giving a story of the death of a child. It is very sadly when we just think about it. Her mother was indifferent, and she did not want to know much about her, also; the only comment they made about the death of this child is that it is “just” another angel who went to heaven. This means that the death of the children was very common on these areas that those tragedies became banal. Because of economic condition, mothers of these children started to accept this fact, the death of a child as natural part of life. Most families which living in these areas are single mothers, who did not have any familiar support. Two of the most common jobs that mothers can do were: they can work in the sugar plantations for very low wages or they can do domestic work in the homes of the wealthy. The first thing that comes to our mind for these women is to pay a babysitter for their children,