This paper investigates the role of the photographic portrait in Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis. This fictional autobiography of a character obsessed by the reconstruction of the links between the present and the past, appearance and reality, face and soul deals with questions which are also part of the photographic imaginary of the 19th century, when photographic portraits become part of every bourgeois home. Among these questions we find the theme of identity and of the duplication of the self, which are also present in Machadian studies such as those developed by Antonio Candido, Augusto Meyer and, more recently, José Luiz Passos. Even though photography appears in several of Machado de Assis's novels, such as Memorial de Aires or Esaú e Jacó, only in Dom Casmurro is it determinant for the structure of the narrative.
photography; Dom Casmurro; identity; portrait