This essay is an attempt to interpret "O espelho", a short story by Machado de Assis, from two stances: the canonical sociological reading and an existential reading. According to the former, the protagonist's experience is understood in terms of an overwhelming social role that molds his identity from the outside in. In the latter, the very same experience leads to the emergence of a despondent consciousness that is both negative and critical. The dialectical character of the second reading, however, is not a Hegelian overcoming of the initial stage of the process, but rather a coexistence of opposites.
Machado de Assis; Social Interpretation; Existential interpretation; dialectical reading