Realistic registers of fashion in Dom Casmurro

Abstract

This is an analysis of realistic registers of fashion in Machado de Assis’ Dom Casmurro, demonstrating its presence in the novel as a part of an ironic game. References to fashion seem to be important elements in the construction of narrative strategies aimed at irony, so contributing to the development of the characters in such a way as to render them not more real and closer to the reader, as expected, but ambiguous and elusive. The description of the characters’ clothes consist of narrative strategies to shape the characters without establishing any fixed meaning, which indicates, therefore, that they are part of the ironic game of the text, susceptible to many different interpretations.