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Machado de Assis: From “Tragic Mulatto” to Human Tragicomedy

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Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis

Part of the book series: New Directions in Latino American Cultures ((NDLAC))

Abstract

Drawing from Machado’s own statements as well as his prose fiction, G. Reginald Daniel provides an alternative interpretation of how Machado’s writings were inflected by his life—especially the experience of his racial identity. He argues that Machado endeavored to transcend, rather than deny, his racial background by embracing his greater humanity. Machado presents a challenge to the notion that the most important thing about one’s personhood is one’s community of descent. Daniel maintains that Machado sought to universalize the experience of racial ambiguity and duality regarding the mulatto condition in Brazil into a fundamental mode of human existence. Accordingly, the conception of the hybrid human subject erodes the very foundation of raciological thinking.

This chapter borrows from material in Daniel, Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian novelist, 2012.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    G. Reginald Daniel

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  1. G. Reginald Daniel
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Lamonte Aidoo

  2. Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA

    Daniel F. Silva

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Daniel, G.R. (2016). Machado de Assis: From “Tragic Mulatto” to Human Tragicomedy. In: Aidoo, L., Silva, D. (eds) Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis. New Directions in Latino American Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54174-1_6

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