A CRÍTICA DA MORALIDADE EM MACHADO DE ASSIS

Abstract

The present work proposes a reading of the work Memórias Póstuma de Brás Cubas (1981) by Machado de Assis (1839-1908) in the perspective of criticizing the morality of the injured life. In this way, an approximation with the work Mínima Moralia (1951) by Theodor Adorno is sought, which, in line with the Aesthetic Theory, makes it possible to place Machado de Assis as a critic of prevailing morality. Machado de Assis was an important Brazilian thinker, recognized not only for the technical and stylistic aspects of his literary works, but for the dimension of pressing social criticism in his writings. In the aesthetic dimension, in its historical transcendence and not merely as an art produced for the revolution, Machado de Assis questions prevailing values, the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad. Thus, by not dwelling on issues of the foreground of the discussions, he also evidences his refusal to manifest himself as freed from the dichotomies of the society in which he lived. There is no such thing as an outsider, a narrator capable of being the impartial observer who is free from evaluative judgments.