If there is one thing that is well portrayed in Brazilian literature, it is the discouraging, corrosive and even oppressive influence of an environment that represents the antithesis of any higher aspiration. The unfortunate who experiences it in this environment often finds himself crushed by a multiplicity of factors that not only exceed him in strength, but seem to work ceaselessly to ensure that he never breaks free. The most dramatic thing about this situation is that it does not just take a gigantic force of will to overcome it, but that it must be constant: a single weakening, a single giving way of the spirit and the whole of the said multiplicity of factors will reveal itself with maximum power, pulling him down. To resist it, it seems, one has to be more than just a man.