Camillo's 'The Fortune-Teller'

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In normal society, people expect adults to know what is right and wrong, but the can trick the mind. According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic principles, one’s conscious is the ego that “experiences the external world through the sense, plays referee between the id and superego” (Tyson 25). The id pertains to one’s deep desires that society forbids and the idea of lacking fear of consequences, whereas the superego is the moral rules taught by society and family. In Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’s short story, “The Fortune-Teller”, Camillo is the ego that is conflicted between his id and ego when he encounters himself in an immoral act that includes his best friend, Villela, and Villa’s wife, Rita. Through Camillo’s struggle with …show more content…

Camillo thinks he does not care about consequences but he unconsciously has fears of his treacherous affair and worries “Villela might learn of it” (Machado 127). The fact that Villela is his best friend exemplifies the immorality of the affair because their relationship is close, it allows a high risk of being caught. If the husband of Rita was a stranger, Camillo could continue the relationship without his betrayal being brought to light. Villela is the representation of his superego that is subconsciously letting him know that the love affair is a wrongful act. Villela is also physical representation of the superego that takes advantage of how the Brazilian society highly views spirituality and uses it against Camillo: “The tilbury had come to a stop; the thoroughfare was blocked by a coach that had broken down [...] He noticed that there at his left, at the very foot of the tilbury, was the fortunate-teller’s house” (Machado 131-132). When Camillo’s tilbury coincidentally stopped in traffic at the fortune teller shop, it appeared as if it was all set up by Villela. Villela assumes that Camillo will fall into the trap because he is gullible to the external world like the rest of society. Although Camillo no longer believes in superstitions and spiritual ideas, his ego is so frail that the teachings the superego held from his youth resurfaces. When Camillo decides to go into the …show more content…

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