A causa revelada – uma análise do conto A causa secreta em relação à crueldade na condição humana

Abstract

This present work consists of an analysis of the short story A Causa Secreta, by the Brazilian author Machado de Assis; characterized as a literary analytic with a philosophical foundation - a literary-philosophical work -, with the objective of analyzing the short story, in order to solve the following problem: is it possible to reflect on how cruelty can manifest itself in the human condition from reading and analyzing the story? With the intention of answering this question, we brought to the discussion the theses addressed in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, in the works Genealogia da Moral (dissertations 01 and 02) e Aurora, and Clément Rosset, in their works O Princípio de Crueldade and Lógica do Pior, which foster reflections about moral, guilt, bad conscience, tragic and real. These ideas allowed us to think about cruelty within the story, constituting the psychological drawings of the characters analyzed and their possibility of their expression in the human condition, basing life. Which led us to the conclusion that cruelty can manifest itself in different ways in the human conditions of each being, as well as in their actions and relationships, reflecting the philosophical concepts - bad conscience, guilt, moral, real and tragic - that permeate it.