The Angel and the Beast: Pascalian Anthropology at the Laboratory of Machado de Assis

Abstract

The fictional works of Machado de Assis challenge Blaise Pascal’s anthropological metaphor. It is used to describe the ambiguous nature of the human being. In this article, we reveal the process that led Machado to take possession of the Pascalian anthropology. The focus is the set of chronicles “Notas Semanais”, written in 1878. Machado anticipates some assumptions of what we know by fantastic literature, giving life to inert beings, compiling a kind of bestiary, describing spectacles with fabulous animals and human monstrosities. The reader and the audience, who amuse themselves and contemplate the spectacle, become equally beasts. It should be noted that the ruin of the Romanesque project and the rejection of the realistic literary doctrines are some of the reasons that forced Machado to reinvent the narrative form. In the same way, the assumptions of Pascalian anthropology are redirected to a skeptical, and even grotesque, inquiry of reality.