Son of Man by Augusto Roa Bastos

First published:Hijo de hombre, 1960 (English translation, 1965)

Type of plot: Social protest

Time of work: From 1910 to the end of the Chaco War in the mid-1930’s, and the period immediately following

Locale: Itapé, Sapukai, and the site of the battle of Boquerón

Principal Characters:

• Cristóbal Jara (Kiritó), a Christ figure
• Miguel Vera, the spectator-narrator, a Judas figure
• Gaspar Mora, a leper, the carver of a wooden Christ figure
• Macario Francia, a mythical man

The Novel

Son of Man is a novel of “man crucified by his fellow man.” The plot includes nine stories, or chapters, not in chronological order, each appearing at first to be independent of the others. The novel jumps from one time to another to introduce an important event or to present a character, acquiring its unity from the repetition of certain symbols and events, and from the voice of Miguel Vera, who is the protagonist-narrator in five of the stories (the odd-numbered chapters), and the omniscient spectator-narrator in the other four (the even-numbered chapters).

Miguel Vera begins by remembering his childhood in Itapé. Vera recalls the figure of Macario Francia, a blind old man, and the stories that he would tell the youngsters, particularly Gaspar Mora’s story, in which Mora, Macario’s nephew, leaves the village for the nearby hills after contracting leprosy. When Mora dies, an image of Christ that Mora carved is found in his house. The peasants take the image to the town, where it presides over their lives, becoming a symbol.

In the following chapter, a little town near Itapé, called Sapukai, has suffered an enormous explosion during an insurrection. In the blast, thousands of people have died. One day, Alexis Dubrovsky, a Russian doctor, suddenly appears in the Sapukai railway station. He dedicates his life to curing the peasants and takes care of a colony of lepers (a common disease in Paraguay at that time).

Miguel Vera next narrates his train journey to Asunción, where, as a young boy, he was going to enter military school. During his trip, Vera listens to the passengers’ conversations, which reveal a variety of characters. Alexis Dubrovsky is among them, and Vera witnesses the moment when Alexis is thrown off the train in Sapukai—this is the moment at which the previous chapter begins.

In chapter 4 comes a description of the terrible conditions in the Paraguayan yerbales (plantations where cocaine, marijuana, and other drug-producing plants are grown), and Cristóbal Jara is introduced. Casiano Jara, his wife, Natí, and their newborn baby boy, Cristóbal, flee the brutality and the inhuman life that they have been forced to endure in the yerbales. At the end of Vera’s narration of their odyssey, they obtain their freedom.

In the fifth chapter, Miguel Vera has been confined in Sapukai because of disciplinary problems, and there he meets Cristóbal Jara, who is also called “Kiritó” (the Guarani word for Christ). Kiritó asks Vera to be a military instructor for a rebel group, but, at the beginning of chapter 6, the rebel conspiracy has failed. All the rebels have been shot or taken to prison except Kiritó, who hides in the cemetery and escapes, disguised as a leper.

Vera, in diary form, next narrates his imprisonment and the Chaco War in which he voluntarily enlists. In the Chaco War, Kiritó has been given the mission to bring water to Vera’s company, which is besieged at the front. After all kinds of adversities, Kiritó manages to arrive, but Vera takes him for a mirage and kills him.

Finally, the war has ended, and Vera has become the mayor of Itapé. Life has not changed much. The spirit of rebellion is growing again. Vera feels his solitude and puts an end to his life.

The Characters

Central to Son of Man is the juxtaposition of two main characters, Miguel Vera and Cristóbal Jara, or Kiritó.

Vera represents the intellectual who cannot completely become one with the oppressed, although he understands them and sympathizes with them. Vera is aware of the need for social revolution in Paraguay. Yet, because he is an introvert and a sentimentalist, he is unable to contribute to that revolution. He simply observes the tragedy of his people from the sidelines. Vera unwittingly becomes a Judas figure. He denounces his comrades, he shoots Kiritó, and at the end of the book, by becoming Itapé’s mayor, he even becomes an official member of the oppressors.

Kiritó is unquestionably the “son of man,” the Christ figure. Kiritó is a silent, uneducated man, the antithesis of Vera. He leads his people by the force of his character. He symbolizes the potential for the salvation of mankind by man himself. Kiritó sacrifices himself for his fellowmen, and he is fully conscious that this is his mission: “For now the only thing that mattered was to go on, always at all costs. . . . That was his destiny.”

Another Christ figure in the book is Gaspar Mora, a maker of musical instruments. Mora contracts leprosy and flees his village to protect his fellowmen from infection and to suffer in solitude his slow death. Mora represents the isolation of human beings, and his leprosy is a symbol of the suffering that he accepts in the name of the people. Yet Mora does not completely die. He remains among his people by leaving behind a part of himself. He carves a Christ image that resembles him, as a reminder of his generosity.

Many other characters populate the book, individual characters, mass-characters (entire communities), and the storyteller Macario Francia. Macario is the conscience of his country. He is a “bridge” between two generations, a living myth. Through his stories, he can propagate the popular wisdom in his native language, so rich in metaphors and symbols: “Man is like a river, my sons . . . a river which is fed by other rivers, and which in turn feeds them. It is a bad river which ends up in bog.”

Critical Context

Son of Man won first prize in Editorial Losada’s International Novel Contest in Buenos Aires in 1959 and was published in 1960. It was a great success, in spite of the dissatisfaction the author himself felt with the book. In 1960, Roa Bastos wrote the screenplay for Son of Man. The film received the first prize of the Argentine “Institutode Cinematografía,” and it was considered the best film in the Spanish language for that year.

In his novel, Roa Bastos presents his country, his people, and his own experiences. Roa Bastos was sent to military school in the capital at the age of eight, like Miguel Vera, the narrator of the story. Roa Bastos fought in the Chaco War against Bolivia. In the early 1940’s, he traveled among the yerbales, where he learned about the exploitation and the degradation of the yerbales workers. All these facts make Son of Man a realistic novel with a historical base transformed by the magical imagination of the author.

Roa Bastos, like other South American writers, wants to present in his novel the essence of his country—the “intrahistory,” as Rodríguez-Alcalá calls it. Yet the novel is more than history. The author presents, at the same time, his vision of the world, and his vision of man: “Man has two births. One when he is born, the other when he dies. . . . He dies, but he remains alive in others, if he has dealt kindly with his neighbours. If he has helped others during his lifetime, when he dies, the earth may devour his body, but his memory will live on. . . .”

Bibliography

Bach, Caleb. “Augusto Roa Bastos: Outwitting Reality.” Americas 48 (November/December, 1996): 44-49. Bach profiles Roa Bastos’s life and career and discusses the theme of power in his novels.

Flores, Angel, ed. “Augusto Roa Bastos.” In Spanish American Authors: The Twentieth Century. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1992. Profiles Roa Bastos and includes an extensive bibliography of works by and about the author.

Foster, David W. Augusto Roa Bastos. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Foster provides a critical and interpretive study of Roa Bastos, with a close reading of his major works, a solid bibliography, and complete notes and references.

Marcos, Juan Manuel. “Augusto Roa Bastos.” In Latin American Writers, edited by Carlos A. Solé and Maria I. Abreau. Vol 3. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989. An essay on the life and career of Roa Bastos. Includes analysis of his works and a bibliography.

Weldt-Basson, Helene C. “Augusto Roa Bastos’s Trilogy as Postmodern Practice.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 22 (Summer, 1998): 335-355. A discussion of the author’s trilogy on the “monotheism of power.”

Weldt-Basson, Helene C. “A Genetic Approach to Augusto Roa Bastos’s Hijo de hombre.” Confluencia 11 (Fall, 1995): 134-147. A discussion of Son of Man.