Abstract
This article analyzes the characters Leonardo Filho, from Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant, a novel by Manuel Antônio de Almeida; and Brás Cubas, from Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, fiction by Machado de Assis, as types that represent respectively two ontologies of the dialectics of malandroism, in the historical context of a subordinate country. These ontologies are the popular and Brazilian, and the anti-popular and anti-Brazilian.
Keywords:
Aesthetic realism; grotesque realism; colonial structure of production; dialectic of malandroism; romantic and classical ritornello