Literatura: O Mandarim

Abstract

One of Eça's most criticized works, O Mandarim is a departure from the Naturalism of his more famous works, instead exploring the fantastic, in an exoitic morality tale on wealth. Teodoro, a low-level government employee, dreams of wealth so much that one night the devil offers to let him inherit the riches of a Mandarim in China, who will die when Teodoro wishes. But when he recieves the wealth a month later, Teodor finds that his conscience troubles him and that he is unhappy despite his fabulous wealth. Seeking to solve his problem by restoring the wealth to the Mandarim's family, Teodoro travels to China, but that effort goes wrong and fails to give him peace.