The Gossiping Witness: Narrative Voice and Reliability in Machado de Assis’s Manuscrito de um Sacristão

	Abstract This paper forms part of an ongoing exploration of classical Brazilian literature following the reading of José de Alencar’s Mãe, which led to a deeper engagement with Machado de Assis’s Manuscrito de um Sacristão. The study analyzes the narrative voice of the short story, focusing on the sacristan as a first-person witness narrator whose account resembles gossip rather than objective testimony. Based on Acuña Solano’s analytical framework for narrative voice, the discussion examines point of view, narrative distance, credibility, tone, atmosphere, stylistic features, and narrative purpose. Particular attention is paid to the narrator’s reliability, given his proximity to the priest and the priest’s cousin, who occupy the moral center of the story. The paper also considers the sacristan’s Machiavellian dimension, arguing that his manipulation operates not through action but through rhetorical control of interpretation. Through individual character analyses, the study demonstrates how Machado de Assis uses a marginal observer to expose moral ambiguity, institutional hypocrisy, and the ethical instability of narrated truth, while also reflecting on the experience of engaging directly with Brazilian literature in Portuguese.	Keywords: Machado de Assis, Narrative Voice, Unreliable Narrator, Machiavellian Narration, Brazilian Literature. Literary Analysis
	Resumen Este trabajo forma parte de una exploración continua de la literatura clásica brasileña iniciada tras la lectura de Mãe de José de Alencar, la cual condujo a un análisis más profundo de Manuscrito de um Sacristão de Machado de Assis. El estudio examina la voz narrativa del relato, centrándose en el sacristán como narrador testigo en primera persona cuyo relato se asemeja más al rumor que a un testimonio objetivo. A partir del marco analítico de Acuña Solano sobre la voz narrativa, se analizan el punto de vista, la distancia narrativa, la credibilidad, el tono, la atmósfera, el estilo y la finalidad de la narración. Se presta especial atención a la fiabilidad del narrador, dada su cercanía con el sacerdote y su prima, quienes ocupan el centro moral de la historia. Asimismo, se explora la dimensión maquiavélica del sacristán, argumentando que su manipulación no se manifiesta en acciones directas, sino en el control retórico de la interpretación. Mediante el análisis individual de los personajes, el trabajo demuestra cómo Machado de Assis utiliza a un observador marginal para revelar la ambigüedad moral, la hipocresía institucional y la inestabilidad ética de la verdad narrada, al tiempo que reflexiona sobre la experiencia de leer literatura brasileña directamente en portugués.
	Resumo Este trabalho integra uma exploração contínua da literatura clássica brasileira iniciada após a leitura de Mãe, de José de Alencar, que conduziu a uma análise mais aprofundada de Manuscrito de um Sacristão, de Machado de Assis. O estudo examina a voz narrativa do conto, concentrando-se no sacristão como narrador-testemunha em primeira pessoa, cujo relato se aproxima mais do rumor do que de um testemunho objetivo. Com base no referencial analítico de Acuña Solano sobre voz narrativa, analisam-se o ponto de vista, a distância narrativa, a credibilidade, o tom, a atmosfera, o estilo e a finalidade da narração. Dá-se especial atenção à confiabilidade do narrador, considerando sua proximidade com o padre e sua prima, que ocupam o centro moral da história. Além disso, investiga-se a dimensão maquiavélica do sacristão, argumentando que sua manipulação não ocorre por meio de ações diretas, mas pelo controle retórico da interpretação. Por meio da análise individual das personagens, o estudo demonstra como Machado de Assis utiliza um observador marginal para revelar a ambiguidade moral, a hipocrisia institucional e a instabilidade ética da verdade narrada, ao mesmo tempo em que reflete sobre a experiência de ler literatura brasileira diretamente em língua portuguesa.

Introduction

Machado de Assis repeatedly undermines the assumption that narration functions as a neutral or transparent vehicle for truth. Rather than relying on omniscient or overtly authoritative narrators, he frequently entrusts his stories to voices marked by limitation, bias, and ethical ambiguity. As Hakobyan (2017) observes, “The narrator in Machado’s stor[ies] is ingenious in that he seems to know and manipulate the reader’s mind which, along with his ability to hold the reader in constant oscillation between the two versions of truth, makes him a Machiavellian narrator.” This oscillation between competing versions of truth is not incidental but structural in Machado’s fiction. In Manuscrito de um Sacristão, the act of narration is delegated to a sacristan, an individual embedded within the religious institution yet peripheral to its formal authority, thereby reinforcing this pattern of strategic instability. The choice of such a narrator is therefore central to the story’s meaning, as it situates truth within a voice that is simultaneously informed, interested, and ethically evasive.

Based on Acuña Solano’s (n.d.) framework for analyzing narrative voice, this paper argues that the sacristan functions as an unreliable witness (Machiavellian) narrator whose account blends observation, interpretation, and moral evasion. Although the priest and his cousin appear to be the central figures of the story, it is ultimately the sacristan’s voice that shapes the reader’s understanding of events. Through a careful examination of narrative point of view, distance, credibility, tone, and purpose, this analysis demonstrates how Machado de Assis transforms gossip into a powerful narrative strategy that exposes not only individual frailty, but the ethical consequences of narrating without responsibility.

Narrative Point of View and Distance

The story is narrated in the first person, immediately situating the sacristan within the world he describes. However, this first-person perspective does not result in intimacy or confession. Instead, the narrator establishes himself as a recorder of events, someone who observes rather than acts. Early in the narrative, he explicitly defines his role:

This statement appears to assert neutrality, yet it simultaneously raises suspicion. By denying any intention to accuse, the sacristan implicitly acknowledges that his account may invite judgment. Narrative distance, therefore, is unstable. The narrator is close enough to witness intimate moments, yet distant enough to deny ethical involvement. He treats the reader as a confident while refusing the vulnerability that genuine confession would require. He plants the seed of doubt in a Machiavellian way; he asserts to say things such as “I cannot judge …, but it seems to me that …”, leaving the rest to the readers’ imagination.

This oscillation between proximity and withdrawal creates a hybrid narrative stance. The sacristan is neither a fully detached observer nor an engaged participant. Instead, he occupies a liminal space that allows him to speak with apparent authority while shielding himself from moral accountability.

Credibility and the Problem of Reliability

The question of credibility lies at the heart of Manuscrito de um Sacristão. The narrator insists on the modesty of his account, repeatedly downplaying its significance. As stated by Psychology Today (n.d.) while describing a Machiavellian personality, it can be perceived through the sacristan’s “a negative, cynical view of the world and of other people’s motivations.” Yet this very insistence on his modesty functions as a rhetorical strategy. At one point, he remarks:

Here, the sacristan justifies the act of narration itself. What might otherwise seem trivial becomes narratable through proximity. This logic legitimizes gossip by transforming closeness into moral relevance. The narrator does not claim omniscience; instead, he claims access. However, access does not guarantee understanding, and the sacristan’s interpretations often exceed what observation alone can support though the readers cannot really perceive what his intentions are not revealing the priest and his cousin’s backstory.

The sacristan’s credibility is further compromised by selectivity. He chooses which details to emphasize and which to leave ambiguous, shaping the reader’s perception while maintaining the illusion of neutrality. As a result, the narration is not false, but it is ethically unstable, filtered through implication rather than assertion.

Attitude, Tone, and Atmosphere

The sacristan’s tone is marked by restraint and irony. As a Machiavellian character, the narrator displays “a lack of empathy and consider [himself] superior to others” Psychology Today (n.d.). He rarely expresses strong emotion or explicit condemnation. Instead, he relies on understatement, allowing implications to accumulate quietly. This tonal choice creates an atmosphere of subdued unease, particularly striking given the religious setting of the story. Machiavellian characters like the sacristan are “characterized by manipulation, deceit, a cynical worldview, and a cold, strategic focus on personal gain over morality” (Nader, 2026).

The church, traditionally associated with moral clarity, becomes a space of ambiguity. The narrator’s calm delivery contrasts sharply with the ethical tension of what he recounts. This dissonance intensifies the reader’s discomfort. Machado’s irony emerges precisely from this contrast: troubling events are narrated in a voice that refuses to acknowledge their gravity openly. The atmosphere, therefore, is neither openly ominous nor reassuring. It is morally suspended, reflecting the narrator’s own reluctance to take a clear ethical stance.

Style of the Telling

Stylistically, the sacristan’s narration is measured and controlled. The sentences are often complex but not ornate, and the vocabulary suggests education without scholarly pretension. This stylistic moderation reinforces the narrator’s self-presentation as a reasonable and trustworthy observer.

However, this apparent simplicity is deceptive. The narrator’s language is carefully calibrated to suggest rather than state, to imply rather than declare. The absence of emotional excess lends the narration an air of credibility, even as the underlying interpretations remain subjective. Machado uses this stylistic restraint to demonstrate how authority can emerge not from overt rhetoric, but from quiet confidence.

Purpose of the Narration and Central Themes

The primary purpose of the narration is the revelation of a secret, but not a sensational one. What the sacristan reveals is not merely a series of events, but a moral contradiction in his eyes. The story explores dilemmas of desire, restraint, and institutional expectation, without offering resolution.

Rather than instructing the reader how to judge, the narrator presents circumstances that invite judgment while disclaiming responsibility for it. This refusal to moralize explicitly is itself a moral stance, one that aligns with Machado de Assis’s broader skepticism toward absolute ethical positions.

Character Analysis

The Priest

The priest in the short story emerges as a figure defined by restraint and internal conflict based on the sacristan’s point of view. He is not portrayed by the narrator as overtly transgressive, but as deeply divided. The sacristan characterizes him through silence rather than action:

This description transforms silence into psychological evidence. The priest’s reticence suggests inner turmoil, yet the narrator never grants access to his thoughts. As a result, the priest remains partially opaque, defined by what he does not say or was not heard by the sacristan. He embodies the tension between institutional role and human vulnerability, a tension the narrator observes but does not resolve.

The Cousin

The cousin functions as a destabilizing presence within the narrative. However, she is never granted an interior voice. Instead, she is constructed through the sacristan’s observation and communal perception:

The phrase “todos notavam” dissolves responsibility into collective awareness. The cousin becomes an object of shared implication rather than an autonomous subject. This narrative choice reinforces the gossip-like quality of the account and highlights the sacristan’s role as a mediator of social judgment rather than a neutral witness.

The Sacristan

As narrator, the sacristan is the most complex character in the story. He presents himself as marginal, passive, and ethically detached, but he isn’t. His control over the narrative grants him significant power. Near the end of the account, he insists:

This statement encapsulates the ethical paradox of the narration. Although the sacristan refuses to judge explicitly, judgment has already occurred through description, tone, and selection of the facts being described. His refusal to assume responsibility does not absolve him; rather, it exposes the moral implications of narrating without accountability. In this sense, the sacristan becomes a symbol of quiet complicity.

Conclusion

Based on Acuña Solano’s (n.d.) framework for narrative voice analysis, Manuscrito de um Sacristão emerges as a meditation on the instability of truth and the ethics of narration. The sacristan’s voice, intimate yet evasive, informed yet unreliable, forces readers to confront not only the moral ambiguities surrounding the priest and his cousin, but also the ethical implications embedded in the act of storytelling itself. Machado de Assis demonstrates that narration is never neutral: to tell a story is already to shape judgment, to guide perception, and to distribute responsibility.

In this sense, the sacristan reveals a distinctly Machiavellian dimension, not in his actions within the plot, but in his control over the narrative. He does not manipulate events; he manipulates interpretation. By presenting himself as a modest witness who merely “relates what he saw and heard,” he cultivates an appearance of neutrality while carefully arranging the evidence that invites suspicion. His repeated refusal to judge, insisting that it is not his place to determine guilt, functions less as ethical restraint than as strategic self-preservation. Judgment has already been engineered through tone, emphasis, and omission.

The sacristan’s Machiavellianism, therefore, is rhetorical rather than political. His power lies in shaping the reader’s oscillation between innocence and culpability, between rumor and fact, between silence and implication. He occupies a marginal institutional position yet wields absolute narrative authority. This paradox underscores Machado’s broader insight: moral uncertainty does not thrive solely in human weakness or forbidden desire, but in the structures through which such weaknesses are narrated.

Through the voice of a seemingly minor observer, Machado de Assis exposes the fragile boundary between witnessing and judging, between recounting and influencing. Manuscrito de um Sacristão ultimately suggests that the most subtle form of manipulation is not overt accusation, but the quiet arrangement of details that leads others to accuse on one’s behalf. In this way, the sacristan becomes both narrator and strategist, embodying the unsettling truth that storytelling itself can be the most refined form of power.

San José, Costa Rica

Saturday, February 21, 2026

📚 References

Acuña Solano, J. (n.d.). Analyzing the narrative voice in a story [Unpublished instructional framework].

Hakobyan, L. (2017), The Machiavellian Narrator in Machado de Assis’s “Missa do Galo”. Purdue University. https://seer.ufrgs.br/brasilbrazil/article/download/80286/47129

Machado de Assis, J. M. (2012). Manuscrito de um sacristão. Livro de domínio publico https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Machado-Assis-ebook/dp/B00AGZHZ48

Nader, R. (2026, February 5). The DARK TRIAD explained: Narcissism, machiavellianism & psychopathy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6kuOp-U1Kw

The Gossiping Witness Narrative Voice and Reliability in M de Assis’s Manuscrito de Um Sacristão by Jonathan Acuña

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