Aires, the “conchavo” artist: a critical reading of Esaú e Jacó and Memorial de Aires

Thesis

The last two novels by Machado de Assis, Esaú e Jacó (1904) and Memorial de Aires (1908), received comparatively less attention from the reading public, while critical consensus identified in their narrator, José da Costa Marcondes Aires, an alter ego of the author himself. A counselor and diplomat, Aires presents himself as a distinguished gentleman and vows to narrate with detachment, insisting that he takes no side in the political conflicts he scarcely mentions, preferring instead to dwell on the minor dilemmas of a restricted circle of wealthy individuals. Thus, what would appear to emerge is a reconciliatory and conciliating Machadian narrator, in stark contrast to his predecessors. Read against the grain, however, what these novels disclose is radical: a farcical reproduction of the intellectuals’ strategy of the period—that of projecting pacification onto one of the most tumultuous moments in the nation’s history, since the novels are set against the backdrop of the Abolition of Slavery (1888) and the Proclamation of the Republic (1889). This was the era of the so-called “great Brazilian compromise,” or grande conchavo, which brought together the new wealth of the coffee plantations of Western São Paulo, the imperial elite, and regional coronéis to the detriment of the rest of the population. An analysis of this context reveals that Aires is not the opposite of Brás Cubas and Bento Santiago, but rather their most accomplished version. Aires combines the relentless display of his various forms of capital (social, cultural, and symbolic) and his distinction, here examined through the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu, with strategies of flattery toward readers and affected candor that serve to naturalize his perspectives. By combining this narrative strategy with his role as memorialist, and given his striking resemblance to Joaquim Nabuco, one of the leading intellectuals of the period, as attested in his diaries, the result is a set of novels that sheds critical light on a decisive period of Brazilian history.

Authors: Brunette, VC

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-7jq7zk211
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: Portuguese
• Keywords: slavery; Brazilian Literature; Brazil; Machado de Assis
• Subjects: Literature; Criticism