Outcomes (Things demanded at college) Book review: Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto

 In Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma, Major Policarpo Quaresma is a vainglorious person who tends to the exacerbated nationalism, with crazy ideas to rescue the Brazilian identity. He believes that Brazil should impose upon Nationalist Revolution and he seeks futilely memories with an old woman who could not remember even the lullabies of his childhood. Despite this, Quaresma goes on to suggest that the Tupi-Guarani should  be accepted as the official language of Brazil and, because of that, he ends up as a cause for mockery in his social environment. His nationalism is seen as utopia for people and this utopia led him to death.

The author, Lima Barreto strongly criticizes      society and costums, covering social differences and prejudices of the time. It is seen as a work of natural reaction of the man who came from suburb classes reacting as a simple suburban. The xenophobia Lima Barreto faced in his own life is transmited throughout the book in characters as such Ricardo das Almas, an acoustic guitar songwriter who helps Quaresma to play modinha - a type of sentimental love song.

By purchasing  his “quiet place” ( as a way of running away from the people who did not understand his wish to save and clean the homeland from external influence), Quaresma suffers with taxes and ants which attack his crops and, because of that, he ultimately engages in a battle alongside republican president Floriano Peixoto. This is a crucial part of the book in which many events lead to the climax.

The work is repetitive and tiresome, but it serves as a moral lesson to people who do not fight for their ideals. A Major Quaresma would not ever make the difference, but millions would; if every Brazilian who read the book granted a tenth of the same love Quaresma felt and fought for their rights, surely Brazil would be very different.

 Lima Barreto criticized everything that concerned the process of modernization in Brazil, being one of the innovators of Brazilian literature and, with his writing, and with the themes addressed in his work, he brought up the everyday prejudice and racial and social marginalization. He also saw literature saw literature as a way to denounce all the hypocrisy that prevailed in urban and rural classes of Rio de Janeiro.