Spectacle and Rebellion in Fin-de-Siècle Brazil: the Commodified Rebel in Machado de Assis's Chronicles.
Abstract
In the present article, I examine Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s five chronicles, published between 1894-1897 in the Rio de Janeiro newspaper A Gazeta de Notícias, on the Brazilian Republic’s assault against the Canudos community in Northeasten Brazil. Focusing on Machado’s critique of the role of communication technologies, and particularly print news, in fin de siècle Brazil, I argue that he makes use of the transformation of the messianic community into a national mediatic event to thematize the birth of a consumer society, the violent expansion of global capitalist networks and state power, authoritarianism, and the contradictory values of what he refers to as "bourgeois industrial society."
Copyright (c) 2018 Carolina Sá Carvalho
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.