O ALIENISTA: POSSÍVEIS ARTICULAÇÕES ENTRE A OBRA MACHADIANA, A HEGEMONIA DA CIÊNCIA E A MEDICALIZAÇÃO DA VIDA
Abstract
The Alienist is a short story written by Machado de Assis, in 1882. The story has as a mainly character Simão Bacamarte, a doctor specializing in mental diseases, currently called psychiatrist. Bacamarte occupies a prestigious position because of his profession and, when he returns to Itajaí, he conquest notoriety and social influence for being considered a man of science. The conflict ensued when the alienist inaugurated the Green House in the city, an asylum that had the objective of confine those who, by determination of the diagnostic criterion stipulated by the doctor, were considered alienated. Even that the community had tried to put an end to the Green House, the place was strengthened with Simão’s obsessed studies. It was used the bibliographic research methodology, which consists of surveying materials related to the researched topic. Therefore, this article aims to expose Machado's work in its criticism about madness and sanity, reflecting, above all, the social place that the figure of the doctor occupies, besides thinking the asylum model as a strategy to mute human subjectivity. However, even with the proposed decline of psychiatric hospitals, the subjectivities keep being silenced with the use of psychopharmaceuticals in an attempt to avoid what is part of the human condition: suffering.