De difuntos y de vivos: los zapatos de Machado y de Rubem Fonseca

Abstract

This essay seeks to analyse two short stories by Brazilian authors separated by a century and by a considerable difference in worldview and style: "O enfermeiro", by Machado de Assis, included in the book Várias historias (1896), and "Sapatos", integrated in Axilas e outras histórias indecorosas (2011), by Rubem Fonseca. The study will focus on shoes: on the one hand, the deceased's shoes that Machado's narrator promises to the narratee, and, on the other, the effective shoes that Fonseca's narrator has to "tame". In both cases, the shoes are a sign of death, personal (in the case of Colonel Felisberto in the first story) or collective (of the class represented by the son of Madam Eremilda, in the second), and cause the punishment that the "cobrador" will certainly demand.