O casamento: the last 24 hours of transgression

Abstract

Nelson Rodrigues's novel "O casamento" (1966) chronicles the 24 hours preceding the marriage of Glorinha, a young woman from the upper middle class of Rio de Janeiro and the youngest daughter of the protagonist Sabino. The owner of a real estate company, prudish, ashamed of his own thinness and a defender of a Christian morality, the father of the bride suffers a break in his daily life without a hitch, of an "indiscriminate cordiality", as the narrator indicates, when, on the eve of the wedding Of the daughter, the gynecologist and friend of the family reveals to Sabino that it caught Teófilo, the groom, kissing his assistant Zé Honório in the mouth. From here on, the conflict of the protagonist begins, in doubt as to whether or not to reveal the truth to the daughter before marriage. Shaken, Sabino has detonated a series of even more disturbing events by releasing pent-up impulses, rescuing old traumas and infantile-juvenile complexes, and indulging in overwhelming sexual fantasies and desires.