The poem explores the idea of individual responsibility and the weight of the world's problems on a single person's shoulders. It delves into the feelings of anxiety, desperation, and hopelessness that come with carrying this burden. The speaker describes the crushing pressure of the world's expectations, the impossibility of fulfilling them, and the subsequent sense of guilt and inadequacy.
By Carlos Drummond de Andrade · First published 1940 · Genre: Poetry, Philosophical Literature, Modernist Literature