Lima Barreto - Style

Style

Bruzundanga's literature is ruled by cute, rhyming and tasteless sonnets. Os Bruzundangas, in which Lima Barreto criticizes the Brazilian literature

Barreto was a very sarcastic author, and he passed this personality to his books. His favoured target of criticism was the perceived mediocrity of the Brazilian people, mainly the government and the commercial/military authorities. One of his works that represents better this style is Os Bruzundangas, a collection of tales he published in newspapers during a period of 20 years.

The author also heavily criticized the complex and difficult writing style, which was popular among Brazilian authorities as a symbol of "intelligence" and "high social status". Due this fact, Barreto adopted a simple style in his books, with less advanced vocabulary, so he could be understood by a majority of the Brazilian society. This provoked an increasing number of criticisms against the author, who was persecuted by the Brazilian elite for his non-classical style.

Barreto also used to explore the psychological conditions of his characters, but, differently from Realist authors like Brazilian Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis or Portuguese José Maria de Eça de Queiroz, this is not considered a great quality of Lima Barreto. Howsoever, his books are full of curious situations of its characters beliefs and thoughts: for example, Policarpo Quaresma (Barreto's most legendary creation) was a radical and almost utopian patriotic, and his beliefs led him to a tragic end. Policarpo was also innocent enough to believe the Brazilian "original nature" could be restored. Exaggerated innocence had also condemned the character Clara dos Anjos to a dishonored life. As for the antagonists, Barreto explores the hypocrisy, the ignorance and the indifference to the others' suffering. Psychopathy was presented in his posthumous book Clara dos Anjos by the antagonist Cassi Jones, who had typical habits of a social psychopath: absence of care to other people's feelings, selfishness and detailed planning to achieve his goals, no matter how vile they are.