Querer, poder, precisar: "O caso da vara"

Abstract

In the apparent timidity o f a domestic scene, in which the needs, desires and caprices o f the characters are tangled in a web that can be seen, at first, as a farce, woven inside our well-known system o f favour and protection, the Machadian narrator gradually unveils the real reason fo r each o f his actions, undertaking a merciless analysis both o f the characters' subjective impulses and o f the violence engendered by slavery