Essay: Son of Man by Augusto Roa Bastos

In Son of Man by Paraguayan author Augusto Roa Bastos, Bastos demonstrates through his characters that his country’s government plagues the country with perpetual, insurmountable oppression. This oppression that permeates Paraguay, as literary and Paraguayan history expert Patricia G. Montenegro brilliantly points out, stems from Dr. Jose Rodriguez de Francia’s harsh, isolationist dictatorship seventy years prior. De Francia’s legacy of harsh Paraguayan leadership continues into the time of the novel, and the government’s cruelty is most obviously manifested through the Chaco War in which it sends off 3.5% of its population or 36,000 men to die in the Chaco War simply for the sake of gaining resources and wealth from the Gran Chaco region between Paraguay and Bolivia according to historian Matthew Hughes’s “Logistics and the Chaco War.” Bastos takes the broad cruelty and oppression of the Paraguayan government and gives it personal meaning through the experiences of three characters in the book: Miguel Vera, Cristobal Jara, and Gaspar Mora. He demonstrates what University of St. Andrews scholar Iain A.D. Stewart notes as the Paraguayan state’s “frequently devastating impact upon the lives of ordinary citizens.” In doing so, he not only brilliantly portrays the oppression the Paraguayan government permeates throughout the country but shows that every Paraguayan, relatively rich and free in the case of Vera, poor and brutally enslaved in the case of Jara, or deathly ill in the case of Mora, experiences the same accelerated fate as a result: death.
Miguel Vera’s life demonstrates Paraguay’s perpetual oppression best since the state’s false sense of loyalty and the solitude he feels lead him to commit suicide in spite of his attempts to succeed the traditional Paraguayan way. In Paraguay of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, education and drinking the kool-aid of nationalism were two major keys to a supposedly successful, happy life. Vera seeks out both, heading off to military school early on in the novel. Though Vera does what he believes is best for his own future and is right by his country, gaining an education and trying to join the military, he is eventually forced by the military to remain in Sapukai for his lack of obedience. Already, the Paraguayan state is an obstacle for Vera to achieve success, and he begins to feel disillusioned with his country. In fact, he becomes so disillusioned that for a time he switches allegiances and joins Cristobal Jara’s rebellious movement. However, when the movement is botched by the Paraguayan government, Vera tries yet again to follow the supposedly successful and righteous path of nationalism by enlisting with the Paraguayan Army in the Chaco War. A veteran of the war and a hero, he becomes mayor of his hometown of Itape. It might seem at this point that Vera has achieved ultimate success. However, in reality Vera feels lonely and the continuation of rebellious activity continues to make him feel disillusioned with the supposed greatness of his country. He realizes that he has been tricked, as Montenegro puts it, by a “false idea of purpose and patriotism.” Though he tries throughout the novel to reach success through the ideal Paraguayan path, the country he seems to initially idolize eventually leads him to a place of darkness and eventually to take his own life.
Cristobal Jara’s path and fate demonstrate the Paraguayan state’s oppression as well. At the beginning of the novel, Jara and his family work on one of Paraguay’s infamous yerbales. The Jara’s are essentially slaves, and, as is typical of 19th and 20th century Paraguayan yerba plantations, are subject to brutal conditions. Jara, quite reasonably wanting a better life for himself and his family like Vera does by going to military school, one day decides to escape the plantation. Quite disillusioned with Paraguay from the start for the obvious reason of his captivity, Vera organizes a rebellious movement. His movement quickly grows due to a surplus of other disillusioned Paraguayans, ranging from ex-slaves to more establishment figures like Miguel Vera who had just been punished for his lack of obedience in military school. However, the Paraguayan state quickly cracks down on Jara’s movement, disbanding it and punishing or killing the great majority of its members. Jara effectively tries with all his might to surmount Paraguayan oppression by fighting the patriarchal system. However, he finds himself and his movement defeated by the Paraguayan state. Jara, determined not to let the initial failure bring him down, manages to personally evade capture by Paraguayan authorities. However, as he tries to survive by delivering goods to the front during the Chaco War, he is symbolically killed by his ex-comrade Miguel Vera. Jara attempts to make a life for himself by escaping slavery and starting a movement he believes is just, yet the Paraguayan state blocks his attempts for freedom and survival at every turn and, symbolically through Miguel Vera who once served alongside him in rebellion, kills him.
Gaspar Mora’s path is yet another indicator of the brutal, oppressive nature of the state. In fact, the way the Paraguayan government handles the entire leprosy epidemic leading up to and during the Chaco War is emblematic of its oppressive, harsh nature. According to a study during the time of the Chaco War by the Leprosy Review titled Leprosy in the Republic of Paraguay, there were up to 4,500 cases of leprosy for only about a million Paraguayans, and the disease seemed to be spreading without an end in sight. However, as Bastos demonstrates, the government’s solution in typical oppressive fashion is simply to constrain the victims and let them die in isolation rather than cure them. Mora, the nephew of an old man who tells Vera his story during his childhood, is one such victim. Victims like Mora are left to die in a small compound near the town of Sapukai and must rely on rare volunteers like Russian doctor Alexis Dubrovsky for any bit of help. While lepers in Paraguay simply want to survive their illness, the government oppresses them by taking their chance at life away, choosing instead to quarantine them.
In effect, the Paraguayan state is brutal and oppressive in the time of Son of Man. Miguel Vera tries to succeed in a traditional sense in Paraguay by initially going to military school and later serving in the Paraguayan army, however he becomes disillusioned by the state and the idea of loyalty to it and commits suicide. Cristobal Jara escapes from slavery and starts a rebellious movement only for Paraguay to squash his movement and for him to be killed. Gaspar Mora and the other lepers in Paraguay’s epidemic for that matter simply want to survive yet the government quarantines rather than treats them, causing them to die in agony. Bastos shows us through his characters what the Paraguayan state is made of in the years leading up to and during the Chaco War. The Paraguayan government creates a seemingly never-ending cycle of pain and oppression brought on by the dictatorship of de Francia. Regardless of one’s path, trying to be a successful soldier or politician, trying to escape slavery, or simply trying to survive leprosy, the Paraguayan government will throw one off and cause one suffering and, in the cases of Bastos’s characters, death.