Notes on "Braz Cubas"

Abstract

Memdrias pdsthumas de Braz Cubasl was first published in 1880 when Machado de Assis was forty-one, nearly twenty years before Domr Casmurro. At first sight the two novels are similar; each is told in first person narrative by a wealthy old man whose long life has been dedicated to himself; each reveals by ironic indirection the narrator's selfish and cynical nature, aggravated by his indolent existence. One of the chief differences, however, and herein lies the superiority as a novel of Dom Casmurro over the other, is that Casmurro begins life with some chances of being human, since the purpose of the novel is to show the tragedy of his decadence; whereas it is evident that Braz Cubas has