Teresa's Dichotomy

Fiorin and Savioli assert that 'todo texto assimila as ideias da sociedade e da época em que foi produzido', 'os textos […] revelam as ideias, as concepções, os anseios e os temores de um povo numa determinada época'. Equally, Camilo Castelo Branco's romantic novel, 'Amor de Perdição', echoes his depiction and critique of the social hierarchy, of nineteenth century Portugal. The central female protagonists, Mariana and Teresa, epitomize the dichotomy of their respective social classes. Mariana exerts passivity and subjugating silence, bluntly contrasting to Teresa's assertive discourse and speech. Furthermore, Mariana's character conveys an ultra-romanticized notion of love, as opposed to Teresa's tragic, and unequivocally, fatal romance

Nevertheless, Teresa's elite stance is not exempt from the ruthless familial conventions, perpetuated by the aristocratic regime. Ultimately, the antithesis of Mariana and Teresa illustrates Branco's critique of social class, as means of transforming 'the novel into a convincing portrait of the nation'.

As a consequence of the juxtaposition between passivity and assertiveness, Mariana and Teresa’s protagonists evoke the abrupt dichotomy of their polar social classes. Mariana’s silence, the pivotal core of Branco’s critique of hierarchy, insinuates her subordinate strata in the social system. Indeed, 'da boca de Mariana, nunca sai nenhuma reclamação, senão para lamentar a situação do próprio Simão, mas não a sua própria'. Through her very mien, she conveys a subdued and passive essence, inherent in her social stance; she possesses ‘formas bonitas, um rosto belo e triste’, an ‘olhar melancólico’. This initial illustration of Mariana explicitly accentuates an ingrained melancholy, perceivable from her very appearance. Branco deliberately employs linguistic crescendo, as he intensifies the imagery of sorrow through listing the adjectives ‘triste’ and ‘melancólico’. Additionally, the agonizing

Rather, the writer depicts the social environment of nineteenth-century Portugal, whereby ‘daughters reluctant to enter into marriages arranged as business deals were routinely sent to convents, where property was still passed down from generation to generation on a patriarchal model which effectively transformed daughters into valuable merchandise [...]. In other words, Branco renders ‘a country still living with quasi-medieval social structures and attitudes (even as it displays the outer trappings of modernity)’. Consequently, Teresa, despite her elite stance, is brutally plunged into such ‘inescapable social realities’, as the writer affirms ‘é preciso que te deixes cegamente levar pela mão de teu pai’. Here, the convention of familial patriarchy is apparent. The social hierarchy perceived the father figure as the ‘principal mantenedora da ideologia burguesa; mas a figura do pai foi comparada ao rei, ou seja, “o pai é o chefe natural da família, tal como o monarca é o chefe da nação’. Indeed, the tragic undertone of the adverb ‘cegamente’ implies the notion of being blindly subdued by the aristocratic system and its conventions. This is further accentuated by the paradoxical language of ‘a violência de um pai é sempre amor’. The juxtaposition of the binary