The outraged legacies: ruins and impostures of the heritage in Dom Casmurro

Abstract

This paper studies the representation of inheritance and heritage, parasitism and ruin as themes and artistic forms in Dom Casmurro. As Machado de Assis exercised the novel as a genre of excellence since this genre is a prodigal son of classical literary heritage, according to Marthe Robert (2007), we assume that Dom Casmurro, given the relevance of the paternity and, consequently, the inheritance in the plot, is a book in which these subjects are tighten up narratives as well intrigue’s rulers as formal’s rulers. In addition to Marthe Robert's (2007) studies of the novel, we have taken as central references Françoise Choay's (2006) notions about heritage and allegory, such as Roland Barthes's (2005) conceptualizations about how the ruins of a book and the ideas of Roberto Schwarz (2012) about paternalism and parasitism in Machado’s literature. We hope, with this work, contributing to studies about Machado de Assis, adding new perspectives to the possibilities of understanding his work.