SOURCE: "Machado de Assis: Short Story Craftsman," in Hispania, Vol. XLVIII, No. 1, March, 1965, pp. 76-81.

In the following essay, Decker discusses the themes, style, and technique in Machado's later stories from Histórias sem data to Várias Histórias.

The themes of Machado's short stories are subtopics of one broad basic concept of human life and the world in which men live. If there is a purpose in Machado's writing, other than simply to entertain his readers, it is to reveal to them this concept by combining fantasy, irony, and reality, blended in innumerable and original juxtapositions.

In "Adão e Eva" a judge explains that the earth was really created by the Devil, not by God. In "Viver!" the last man on earth, being weary of the world's ills, is happy to have reached the end of his existence. Although Machado appears to view the world...