Produção e visibilidade da verdade em O Alienista

Abstract

In "O alienista", Machado de Assis brought into fiction the system of exclusion represented by the Brazilian psychiatry of the 19th century,satirizing the scientific discourse that is embodied by the main character,the physician Simão Bacamarte. The novella shows the production of truth,according to the process described in the 20th, century boy Michel Foucault. However, the narrative does not lead the reader into the asylum where the so-called mad are. Therefore, truth is not visible since the narrative only deals with part of the phenomenon of social exclusion: the visible part. The conflict takes place beyond the walls.Machado de Assis effectively plays with the absolute visibility, making caricatures that point out the rigidity, the mask and the stereotype of power.