The aim of this study is to examine how the benchmarks natural/climatic and
social/historical influence the choices of the creative writer Graciliano Ramos Lives in the
book Vidas Secas, published in 1938. For this purpose, appropriates the concepts of social imagination proposed by Baczko (1985), Le Goff (1992) and Castoriadis (1982, 1987) to discuss the images and representations introduced by the characters in this plot around the Caatinga, as well as practices cultural and political engendered from these perceptions. Sharing with a conception of literature that considers how to maintain links with the real world, research historicizes how society has appropriated the Semiarid in the 1930's decade and highlights the wealth and potential of this environment yet to be developed.
