“Father versus Mother”: Slavery and Its Apparatuses

Abstract

This chapter uses Machado’s short story to reinterpret the structuring role of slavery in nineteenth-century Brazil, tracing how in a microcommunity of Afro-descendants, even those who were free continued to experience slavery as it permeated all aspects of everyday life. Machado’s story begins with the assertion that, with slavery, there came occupations and apparatuses that were specific to it, such as slave catching. What interests Rocha is the extent to which occupation and apparatuses constitute fields in which this microcommunity moves. By means of these apparatuses and this occupation, Machado elaborates a close struggle between Afro-descendants who, being socially so close, clash due to their liminal proximity with the subjugation and death instituted by slavery.