"Maria Moisés” e “Pai contra Mãe”: casamento, trabalho e maternidade em narrativas de Camilo Castelo Branco e Machado de Assis

Abstract

The characters of Camilo Castelo Branco and Machado de Assis in the narratives “Maria Moisés” and “Father against Mother” experience human dramas typical of society at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century in Brazil and in Portugal. Relationships between noble families and the patriarchs' power of decision over their children and households made many romantic heroes suffer from an impossible love; among the poor, those who married among the same class had freedom, but needed to provide their own subsistence and work. This dissertation analyzes how the social roles for women and men, mothers and fathers, free, aggregated and enslaved people affected the perspectives of life and autonomy of the characters created by Camilo and Machado. This dissertation also observes what brought Camilo's writing closer and what made it distant from Machado's writing and how this later author offered possibilities of astonishment and social criticism in his works