Abstract
Based on the assumption that memory is one of the literature’s foundations, the article compares Spilt Milk, by Chico Buarque, and Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, by Machado de Assis. The analysis makes the similarities and differences between these memorialistic novels explicit, which are related to thematic and compositional aspects, and confirms that both novels compose an allegory of Brazilian nationality and establish a parallelism between the life course of the protagonists lives, or of their families, and episodes from Brazil’s history. This article concludes that the creative procedures of the narratives compose a game of mirrors, which, by involving the reader, claims the importance of literature as a space for reflection on itself and on events from the history, which fiction projects in a new light.
Posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas; Spilt Milk; Memory