A Escrita do tempo e da história por meio de crônicas e do conto “Pai contra mãe” de Machado de Assis

Abstract

This research proposal is to investigate the mutual echoes between Machado de Assis' short story "Pai contra mãe", published in the book Relíquias da casa velha (1906), and four chronicles by the same author that appeared first in the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias, in the sections “A Semana” (4/11/1897 and 10/16/1892) and “Bons dias!” (11/05/1888 and 05/19/1888). We believe that Machado de Assis' experience in the press as a chronicler has served as a foundation stone for building a unique and striking style in his literary works, such as novels and short stories, based in the use of irony - from skepticism to the search for the small things in human behavior -, that marks his evolution as a writer and defines his trace in posterity. Moreover, the chronic and the short-story, analyzed in this work, have a lot of historical data in common, like the transition from slavery to abolition and from Monarchy to Republic in nineteenth-century Brazil. The characters Machado created for his narratives also have some peculiarities: Pancrácio, Arminda, the bell-ringer of the Gloria Church and the donkeys allegorically represent the enslaved black men. Cândido Neves, in turn, is a poor white man, that lives on the margins of society. Denominations - poor white man and marginal freed slave, rented, fugitive or non-slave - mark the same socioeconomic conditions for the different characters, who live in extreme poverty, were not properly inserted in society, have no access to social goods, are sold to the reality they belong, always serve the same masters and are all socially excluded; so, are all of them marginal . Were used for this study the works of Bergson (2004), Bersani (1984), Bosi (1992), (1994) e (1999), Brandão (2009), Candido (1992) e (1970), Conrad (1975), Duarte (2007), Duarte (2006), Freire (2004) e (1963), Gledson (1986) e (1990), Gomes (2009), Granja (2000) e (2006), Koselleck (2006), Kowarick (1985), Muecke (1995), Muricy (1988), Pereira (1988), Perlman (1977) e Schwarz (1992) e (1983).