Arid Lives By Graciliano Ramos Summary

Progress Decades after the violent suppression of sertanejos in Canudos in the 1890s, Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos’s 1938 piece Arid Lives details the lives of the ambitious Vitória and her humble husband as they struggle with poverty while she aspires to elevate in Brazilian society. Although Brazil had overseen a period of economic success, capitalizing off import-substitution industrialization accompanied by the Estado Novo era of nationalist Getúlio Vargas in 1937, the rest of the nation grappled with little opportunity for upward mobility. While Graciliano Ramos’s Arid Lives, much like Euclides da Cunha’s portrayal of the sertão, remain pivotal to Brazilian identity, Ramos affirms that while the rest reaped the benefits of Brazil, the rest remained poor, their lifestyles exploited for the sake of national identity. Even if one rose …show more content…
Throughout the story, Vitoria laments her poor lifestyle as she schemes to acquire more money to bolster her ambitions. The Alagoana, in her useless and expensive shoes, tortures herself over not having a leather and sucupira wood bed. Although many in the sertão lived without such wealth, the rest of the nation became prosperous. In the 1930s, Brazil was the most populous in Latin America: heavily rural and dependent on its previous exports system before ISI replaced it. In a few years, industry would surpass agriculture in terms of the Brazilian GDP under the presidency of Getúlio Vargas. However, despite the new wealth from ISI invigorating the veins of Brazil, poverty endured as the most impervious issues in Brazilian society. Soon, it were cities