Abstract
I discuss racial issues in "Father against Mother" and The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by connecting Machado de Assis's work to African American literary and critical tradition represented by Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif" and the theory of interpretation centered on the Signifyin(g) Monkey developed by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Keywords:
Signifyin(g); Toni Morrison; "Father against Mother"; The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas; race