Brás Cubas’s Inefable Obscurity

Abstract

Pressed by his father’s insistence for him to make something of himself, Brás Cubas feels the need to avoid a social obscutrity which is analized in this article as going beyond the tentative social and political ambition he exhibits—an ambition which is emblematic of afluent families competing to secure their standing in the rigid 19th-century Brazilian society. Despite all opportunities enjoyed through the conveniences and open doors that his family estate provided him, Brás was not able to be unquestinably successful in any of his endeavors. His explicitly declared melancholy confirms, on the one hand, a personal career of disappointments. With proud detachment, on the other, he announces his delight in not having had to work for a living and, moreover, in not having passed along “our misery.” This article will textually demonstrate Brás’s failures and indicate the sociocultural condition that entraps him