José de Alencar: Insights into the tense accommodation between tradition and modernity in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyzes the tense accommodation between patrimonialism and bureaucratic capitalist model in the late nineteenth century in Brazil, based on the insights contained in the book Senhora (1875) by José de Alencar. At first, the article analyzes the interpretations of Brazil from Weberian perspective, and then, discuss the process of accommodation between tradition and modernity in the historical context of the Brazilian Empire contained in this work of the novelist. The hypothesis which guides the text is based on the idea that patrimonialism, present in Brazil since the colonial period, reached the peak of its influence and also a process of accommodation with the rational-legal order during the Empire. José de Alencar would portray on the characters and in the plot of this work both the elements of this accommodation and his personal opposition to the advancement of the bourgeois order over the patrimonial order.