Example◆Audio · 22:50 — 24:20
Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.
Viviani explains how Machado subverts the Othello narrative in Don Casmurro: the narrator Bento Santiago (nicknamed Don Casmurro) is both the jealous Othello and the manipulative Iago, and the reader can never know the truth about Capitou. ✦ AI generated
Viviani Carvalho da Annunciation · In Our Time · 2026-07-09 · original ↗
plays this moment only · 22:50 — 24:20
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“It doesn't sound like the way a lot of people describe it, which is a modern Othello. Is that right?”
We don't hear her voice. We hear her through his eyes. But he's very jealous. He believes that his best friend, Escobar, had an affair with her, and their child is actually his best friend and not his. ... It took an American critic, Helen Caldwell, in the 80s, 90s, to write the Brazilian Othello. And she pointed out to us, which was right in front of us, you shouldn't trust this first person narrator. ... Machado is a brilliant author that he is, he's already showing us Iago is inside his mind. So Don Cazmuhu is both Othello and the Iago at the same time, both the duped one and the person who's suggesting that Capitou is unfaithful.
verbatim transcript · starts at 22:50
- ·Bento Santiago (Don Casmurro) is an unreliable first-person narrator
- ·We never hear Capitou's voice — only his version of events
- ·American critic Helen Caldwell exposed this in the 1980s-90s
- ·Bento is both the duped Othello and the manipulative Iago
- ·Iago is already inside his mind, says Machado
- ·The narrator's name even contains 'Iago'
- ·Jealousy, not evidence, drives the story
- ·Bento believes his best friend Escobar had an affair
- ·Reader can never know whether Capitou was unfaithful
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