. The focus of the work is the nationalism in the early years of the First Brazilian Republic and criticism to the middle-class and the bureaucratic government. The work is comical in the beginning, transiting to harsh criticisms by the end. These critics demystify the figure of the president Floriano Peixoto (1891–1894), known as the Marechal de Ferro ( The Iron Marshal ), and also of the Brazilian military. The book is centered on Policarpo Quaresma, an ultra-nationalist bureaucrat of the Army. Quaresma is an enthusiast of Brazilian popular and indigenous culture, and has an innocent love for his country. Throughout the story, his heightened patriotism leads him always to disastrous situations: in the first part, he ends in an asylum; in the second, his agricultural enterprise fails due to the Brazilian pests and soil; and in the third and final part, he is arrested and executed under the orders of Floriano Peixoto, whom he admired.
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