Abstract
Helena is the most sentimental of Machado de Assis’s novels. However, the sentimental tradition is articulated in an extremely complex and problematic way in this novel. The aim of this paper is to examine how this tradition is explored in Helena to reveal the power relations that characterized the patriarchal society in which Machado lived, and which earlier Brazilian novels tried to dodge. In Helena, the sentimental code functions as a means to mediate between these power relations, while it perpetuates them, revealing the contradictions in the way this code was appropriated in nineteenth-century Brazilian novels and giving it a new meaning.
sentimental code; patriarchy; power relations; nineteenth-century Brazilian novel; Helena