Memory of illusions: a study of ressureição, first novel by Machado de Assis

Author(s)

Amanda Rios Herane

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2011-05-11

Examining board members

Helio de Seixas Guimaraes; John Angus Gledson; Leopoldo Garcia Pinto Waizbort

• Advisor: Helio de Seixas Guimaraes

Abstract

This research is as interpretation of Ressurreição (1872), Machado de Assiss first novel. Instead of exploring the way it relates to other works by the same author (an issue which is only indicated at the end of this text), this study focuses primarily the novels internal elements. I wish to show that the book is structured around an evaluation of the characters behavior, one which is linked to an apology of marriage in the context of nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro. As I intend to show, the novel represents matrimony in an ambiguous way and praises conformity to dominant institutions. Twentieth-century critics of Machado de Assis have distinguished two different moments in his works, the boundary between which would be the novel Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (1880), placing Ressurreição in the first of them. The first chapter of this work explores the assumptions which have led to this separation, focusing also the debate over how Ressurreição fits together with the three other novels pertaining to the so-called first moment. This chapter also includes an overview of the way Ressurreição was received by nineteenth-century and recent critics. The second chapter approaches the novel from the perspective of the guidelines offered by the author on the foreword to the first edition. The interpretation suggested by these guidelines, taken together with the general ideas presented in the book, has some implicatons which will be related to the discussions raised by G. Lukács and Ian Watt on the novel as a genre. The third and last chapter focuses some contradictions on the narrators discourse, which manifest themselves especially in his apology of marriage. For this reason, the chapter also includes a brief overview of matrimonial relations in nineteenth-century Brazil. The meaning of these contradictions and the way Ressurreição fits into Machado de Assiss work are questions which may be related to each other, consisting the main concerns underlying this research. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 08/07771-4 - Memory of Illusions: a study of Ressurreição, Machado de Assis s first novel
• Grantee: Amanda Rios Herane
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master