After being orphaned, a boy is raised by his grandfather and uncles, rich rural landowners, on a sugarcane plantation where he grows up, studies, learns about politics, love and disillusionment.

In a city in the Brazilian northeastern backwoods, the political chief is assassinated by a professional gunman. From there, the city begins to live the climate of the event. The killer, concealed by important people, is hidden in the house of a humble family. Time passes and the gunslinger leaves his hiding place, being killed soon after. Also the family that hid the criminal is assassinated, as well as the judge who was conducting the investigation of the murder of the political chief.

In the Brazilian countryside, poor sharecroppers join a messianic group led by Joaquim, who believes he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Gaining power over the peasants, he begins to persecute those who do not pay absolute obeisance.

In the drought areas of Northeastern of Brazil, groups of migrants move trying to find better place to live, at least with water. Some of them go to Recife, to get a vessel to Santos expecting to have a better life in the Southern. In the poor area of Recife, an old washerwoman launders clothes to survive and support her family. Her husband Zé Luis, a former sailor, is crazy due to a hit of the boom of a mast on his head. Her older son Raimundo works in a grocery and selling mangoes on the street, trying to save money to move to the Southeastern with his girl-friend Aurora. Her daughter wants to be a prostitute to have a better quality of life. Her younger son is seriously sick.