Abstract
This chapter analyzes three largely unstudied works in order to explore a fairly ignored facet of Machado’s oeuvre: his gothic short stories. Ginway examines three such stories, “O capitão Mendonça” (Captain Mendonça, 1870), “A vida eterna” (Eternal Life, 1870), and “Os óculos de Pedro Antão” (Pedro Antão’s Glasses, 1874), to suggest that these are actually political allegories disguised as tales of the macabre. All three conjure up images of death and decadence and take place in settings associated with the past. In this sense, Machado’s use of allegory in his tales of the fantastic brings us back to history, slavery, melancholy, and loss during the 1870s—precisely the images of ruin and devastation that are central to Benjamin’s concept of allegory.
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Ginway, M.E. (2016). Machado’s Tales of the Fantastic: Allegory and the Macabre. In: Aidoo, L., Silva, D. (eds) Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis. New Directions in Latino American Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54174-1_14
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