“O senhor conhece a mulher que possui”: dominação masculina em Dom Casmurro e S. Bernardo

Abstract

Thirty-five years separate the publications of Machado de Assis’ Dom Casmurro from Graciliano Ramos’ S. Bernardo. Despite the distance in time, these novels denounce the same rigid model of female representation which conceives the woman as subordinate to the will of man. Due to their behavior, Capitu and Madalena are rejected by the authoritarian speech of their husbands-narrators. The objective of this article is to show how these two novels question this macho model, as they attribute great importance to the two female characters.