Abstract
This paper examines Lima Barreto's 1911 novel, a polemic work attacking the moral and political vacuity of turn-of the-century Brazilian life. The piece aims to discover the cause of the protagonist's downfall through an examination of his political, agricultural, and military exploits within the context of contemporary Brazil; is Quaresma a political visionary, a Brazilian Don Quixote, or a dangerous nationalist madman? The notion of madness in the text can be seen in the light of modern theories of bipolar depression. This article links this interpretation to the author's own embryonic anarchist ideas, and suggests that his belief in the bankruptcy of party politics around the time of the dictatorship of Marshal Floriano Peixoto may have inspired left-wing aims of social reform.
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