O cômico e o trágico no conto O Telegrama de Ataxerxes, de Aníbal Machado

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the short story “O telegrama de Ataxerxes”, by Aníbal Machado, from the perspective of the character's journey in his attempt to reach the valuable object that will transform his existence. The inability to write the telegram that will allow access to his childhood friend, then Head of the Nation, is one of the obstacles he faces. From an advent named by Walter Benjamim of “profane enlightenment”, the protagonist establishes conjunction with his dream and follows a path marked by chance, in a game between essence and appearance, reality and fantasy. Moved by illusion, he approaches the caricatured figure of a modern alazon. At the level of enunciation, the ironist composes in the tale the sorrow in different situations and models of irony. His impotence in face of facts makes the diegesis flow into an anticlimax of tragedy. A hero in the ironic model, his figure awakens compassion in the reader, a spectator of a situation that dissolves, in reality, Ataxerxes' dreams and enhances his drama in the narrative. As theoretical support for the analyzes, we will use the texts by Aristóteles (2008), Braith (2008), Candido (2002), Muecke (1995), Nadeau (2008), Rosenfeld (2006), Teixeira (2011), among others.