Satan, Morality, and Temptation in Álvares de Azevedo’s “Macário” (1850) | Stephen Basdeo

Álvares de Azevedo’s Macário (1850) transforms the traditional tempter of Christian drama into a philosophical moral arbiter who performs God’s work in sifting the irredeemable from the earth. In Macário, then, the Devil emerges not as corrupter or tempter but as the play’s moral centre: urbane, eloquent, and disgusted by human hypocrisy and irreligiosity. His irony exposes the spiritual decay of…