Reading Rio de Janeiro

Literature and Society in the Nineteenth Century

Zephyr Frank

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781503632929, 9780804757447
• eBook ISBN: 9780804797306
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Reading Rio de Janeiro blazes a new trail for understanding the cultural history of 19th-century Brazil. To bring the social fabric of Rio de Janeiro alive, Zephyr Frank flips the historian's usual interest in literature as a source of evidence and, instead, uses the historical context to understand literature. By focusing on the theme of social integration through the novels of José de Alencar, Machado de Assis, and Aluisio Azevedo, the author draws the reader's attention to the way characters are caught between conflicting moral imperatives as they encounter the newly mobile, capitalist, urban society, so different from the slave-based plantations of the past. Some characters grow and triumph in this setting; others are defeated by it. Though literature infuses this social history of 19th-century Rio, it is replete with maps, graphs, non-fiction sources, and statistical data and analysis that are the historian's stock-in-trade. By connecting a literary understanding of the social problems with the quantitative data traditional historical methods provide, Frank creates a richer and deeper understanding of society in 19th-century Rio.

INDEX

Note: page numbers followed by t refer to tables; those followed by f, to figures or illustrations; those followed by n refer to notes, with note number.

abandonment of spouse: rates of in 19th century Brazil, 202n25; as solution to bad marriage, 137

acceptance frames, Burke on, 93

acts, explicit, vs. implicit attitudes, 91, 92

adultery, 131, 137–38, 157

Aguiar (Azevedo character), 73, 83–84, 138–39, 140, 172–73, 172f

A.J.A. Souto & Co., collapse of, 144–45

Albuquerque, Emílio Henrique de (Azevedo character), 120

Alencar, José de, 107–11, 132, 174, 174f, 175t, 200n77; absence of world of work from novels of, 6; and Balzac, affinity with, 5–6, 7, 8, 31–32, 33, 35, 62, 152, 185n16, 189n6, 191n50, 197n14; on Bildung, 179; corrupting power of money in, 132; endings of novels by, 181; front and back spaces in, 157, 158–59; on heredity and environment, influence of, 118, 119, 200n73, 200n77; individual choice in, as tragic, 7; life and career of, 21–22, 85, 189n7; on marriage, life within, 131, 132; on marriage market, female power in, 129–30; and money, views on, 142; novels by, 5–6; possibility of dreams come true in, 7; Schwarz on tension between European form and Brazilian reality in, 89; sex as destabilizing force in, 132; views on slavery, 21; volunteerism of, 120. See also A Pata de Gazela; As Asas de um Anjo; As Minas de Prata; A Viúvinha; Encarnação; Iracema; Lucíola; Senhora; Sonhos d’Ouro; specific characters

Alencar, on women, 107–11; and Camille complex, 107–8; and comportment in public, 110; critique of double standard, 101, 107, 109–11; and sexual activity, as disqualification for marriage, 103, 107–8; sympathetic portraits of, 101, 108–9

Aljuba, Visconde de (Alencar character), 25–26, 97, 99, 145, 166t

Almeida (Azevedo character), 112–13, 172, 172f

Amâncio (Azevedo character), 160, 161

Amélia (Azevedo character), 161

André (Azevedo character): in character and space network of novel, 168, 172f, 175t; education of, 68, 75, 94, 95; efforts to save money, 83; function of as character, 73; good character of, 69; honor of as obstacle to success, 76; introversion of, 75, 83; and loss of love, 75–76; and marriage, failure to achieve, 131; “O Coruja” (the owl) as nickname of, 70; poor background of, 68, 74–75; pride of as obstacle to love, 75; residences of as reflection of character, 83; as small and ugly, 68, 75; stability of character in, 119; and true history of Brazil, eff...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction: The Brazilian Bildungsroman
• Interlude: The Problem of the Individual and Society
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Consulted
• Index