In 1971 Jorge Amado releases the novel Tieta do Agreste (Tieta, the Goat Girl). Profoundly marked for the environmental worries that grew in the 1970'', the
author presents in this work the menace to which the coast of
Bahia was facing. This threat borders all the action and has the mark of the author: the preocupation and the engagement to the
social causes. If on one hand the governmental speech of the military dictatorship that looms in the country in 1970'' sang in prose or in verse the wonders of progress and the implantation of basic industries allover Brasil, on the other hand, we have the activists deffending the cause of the protection of the environment alerting to the dangers of polution and of the industrial waste dumped carelessly into the earth, sky and sea. This context serves as background where all the action of our heroine Tieta. Like the real world Bahia faced the threat of the heavy metals of the oil industry that had established there, the fictioned bahia of Jorge Amado faced the also fictioned industry of Brastanium.
That fictitious place, Mangue Seco, in which the main character was born and raised, welcomes at the same time two illustrious personalities. The Brastanium staff, and Tieta, who, when still a young girl, for her manners in love and passion, had to leave the town. Tieta nearly banished from the small city, returns as a successfull business woman that conquered the
city of São Paulo.
Left to the key moment of the narrative is the exact line of business to which the entrepreneur dedicated herself to. The romances of Tieta, the new ones that begin to appear, the true friendships the resurge supporting her and the occasional friends, interested in teke vantage of her money and prestige, the city''s traditional poiliticians and the new leaders that appear in this particular situation, parade side by side, leading the reader to feel complete sympathy for some, and utter disgust to others. All of that taking place at the same time that, in the quiet littoral village of Mangue Seco political and social problems begin to arise, which to the date were not her incumbency.
this is the setting of the novel: good humoured and social engaged. The author conducts the reader in a light and interested way untill the last line of his work.
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