The novel as machadian watercolor: a reading of masculinities through the representation of the anti-hero in Machado de Assis. (1872-18
novels, Machado de Assis, anti-hero, figuration, masculinities.
This research aims to analyze four novels written by Machado de Assis, Ressureição (1872), A Mão e a Luva (1874), Helena (1876) and Yayá Garcia (1878). The hypothesis outlined is that Machado's writing movement induces the category of “anti-hero” for his characters who represent lordly masculinities. The movement of figuration of the central masculinities in the four works inverts the novelistic logic of the hero figure, beginning to deplete the hegemonic symbolic charges to the point of creating a formal scheme that provokes in the reader the historical feeling of the anti-hero. The reading of the critical reception in reviews and articles historically contemporary to the novels, the detailed analysis of each character and their creative mimetic process, the proposal of a Machado watercolor, the dialogic behaviors within the text, in addition to the sample of ways of being a man that color these productions, are the paths followed by this work.