As casas das Casas: Nos romances Os Maias e A Cidade e as Serras de Eça de Queirós

Eça de Queirós, a leading figure of Portuguese Realism, depicted in his two novels The Maias and The City and the Mountains the relation of the last members of distinguished families to their mansions. Picturing the houses, he analyses and criticizes the society of that time. Carlos Eduardo, the protagonist of the first novel, reconstructs and furnishes a house in Lisbon so that it corresponds with his position as a member of high society (he is an intellectual and a physician). The house, being a reflection of the Portuguese elite, slowly starts to decay and its existence is endangered. Jacinto, the protagonist of the second novel, lives in a luxurious palace in Paris. He concieves his house as a project and gathers in it all inventions of his time. However, the technical conveniences rather complicate the tenants’ lives. For family reasons, Jacinto travels to a dilapidated mansion house in the backward Portuguese countryside. The second project of a house, in harmony with nature, is more successful and represents a way out for European society tired by its “civilization”.