Published 2016-09-20
Copyright (c) 2016 Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies
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Abstract
Abstract: This paper argues that the novella "O Alienista" articulates the two contrary dimensions of Simão Bacamarte’s last gesture as a twofold affirmation: an affirmation of the insurmountable difference that separates science from madness and an affirmation of their confusion in the person of the alienist. This double assertion is the story’s principle of coherence and the fulcrum of its originality: the narrative creates a distance between its two segments, bringing together at the moment of closure what it has never allowed us to confuse as it developed.