Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, "Father versus Mother"

October 3rd, 2012

     I have been more than candid on this blog about my lack of passion in regards to the Humanities and have openly admitted that I am still trying to figure out exactly what it means to interpret famous works of Latin American art (I'm terrified of the fact that we are going to be listening to music tomorrow). The cultivation of that skill is one that surely takes a healthy amount of time. That being said, Tuesday's assigned reading was incredible. The short stories that we read were captivating, exciting, and full of suspense for the reader. Unfortunately, my favorite of the three short stories we read was not analyzed in class nor opened to discussion. Below is my favorite quote from that story, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis', "Father versus Mother:"

     "As a matter of fact, Candido would have liked to have done something else. Not for the reason suggested by Aunt Monica, but for the simple pleasure of changing his trade. It would be a way of changing his skin or his personality. The trouble was, he did not know of a business he could learn fast."

(Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Father versus Mother, 92)

 

     Candidio, at this point in the story, is desiring more than anything a drastic change in occupation. He finds himself a failng "slave chaser" in a market that could not be more jam-packed with men willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of runaway slaves. Weighed down by feelings of panic, guilt, shame, and quite possibly a lack of manhood for his inability to provide for the needs of his wife and "soon to be born" child, Assis opens the door to Candido's innermost thoughts and feeling in the aformentioned citation.

     The most important aspect of the piece references Candido's feelings toward a career change saying, "It would be a way of changing his skin or his personality." The narrator's analysis immediately made me think of a general conference talk that was given a couple of years ago on the difference between "to be" and "to do." The talk was entitled, "What Matter of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?" and was given by Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the First Quorum of the Seventy and was given in the April General Conference of 2011. I'll apologize right from the beginning for my cliche religious breakdown of something as temporal as Brazilian literature, but I promise to make these sort of connections sparingly. Elder Robbins, in his address, presents the extremely tight relationship that there is between "to be" and "to do." The action of "doing" is a direct bi-product of what and who someone is, the "be." However, that being said, "to do," without "to be" is complete and total hypocrysy because the feeling, passion, and devotion behind what others see, "the fruit" of ones labor, is nothing more than a fallacy. Consequently, in order to change the "do" of an individual, the "be" is what must be focused on. In Assis,' "Father versus Mother," Candido, in his most desperate of states, felt that he needed to change his profession in order to change both his skin and his personality. In reality, although it be nothing more than a short story, Candido needed a focus more centralized on his personal values in order to motivate a temporal change, such as a profession. If an image ("skin") is Candido's main worry, a change in occupation will do nothing more than offer a change in title. Take for example the statement proposed by Elder Robbins in regards, coincidentally, to both IDENTY and PROFESSION. He said,

"Identity confusion can also occur when we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, as if what a person does for a living is who he or she is. Neither professions nor possessions should define identity or self-worth. The Savior, for example, was a humble carpenter, but that hardly defined His life." (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/what-manner-of-men-and-women-ought-ye-to-be?lang=eng)

Such was the case for the savior, and such would have been the case for Candido.