Reading and Social Ascension: Strategy and Power

In the Portuguese novel O Primo Basilio, it is noticed that the criticism about bourgeois society is not limited to claims relating to typical representatives of this class, but also involves those who participate in the bourgeois routine, its privacy; in which case, the housemaids. Based on this, this paper develops a study on the character Juliana, observing, in her behavior, a very particular attempt for social ascension, in which she challenges the limitations of her class and uses the reading as a strategy for obtaining power. Juliana goes beyond written information decoding, because she can "read" the bourgeois universe, understanding it to the point of designing plans to take advantage of it.