The research concentrates on the discussion of Machado de Assis literary work. The main focus is the Machadian humor as a deconstruction procedure of the implied reader s cynical discourse. In order to illustrate this hypothesis, the main reference will be the book Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas. Other romances of Machado s second phase will be discussed; the short stories A teoria do medalhão, O espelho, and O alienista, along with two of his most important critical writings: O instinto de nacionalidade and A nova geração. The dissertation intends, with such procedure, establish the relationship of the literary production of Machado de Assis with the present analytic project in his critical texts, and also, discern his contribution and relevance in the Brazilian cultural debate.