O enigma de Capitu: um olhar sobre a obra Dom Casmurro, de Machado de Assis

Abstract

This monograph analyzes the social relations lived by the characters in the novel Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis, object of our research, turning the corpus to the narrator character and Capitu's riddle. By conducting this research, it was possible to understand the sociocultural representation of Capitu in the nineteenth century, since the narrator builds an ambiguous narrative, making the reader sometimes doubt, sometimes believe in the innocence of Capitu, which makes it a symbol of resistance and rupture of the power structures of the time. In this sense, this study will analyze the theme of betrayal, going through the characters Benedict, Capitu and Escobar, whose social and psychological relationships of the characters reflect the values prevailing in patriarchal society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth, the time when the novel was written. So, we observed the way in which Machado's first-person voice narrator appropriates stereotypes about women and at the same time confronts her in the conduct of the novel. The results of the research are shown in the analysis of disguised or not. As a theoretical basis, we took the critical thinking of Aguiar e Silva (2007), Brait (1985), Moses (2006), Schwartz (2000) and Candido (1995 and 2011).