University of Northern Iowa

The Divorcee Looks at Her SonAuthor(s): Herbert ScottSource: The North American Review, Vol. 254, No. 2 (Summer, 1969), p. 5Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116937 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 12:31

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The NorthAmerican Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:31:54 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

disastrous war with Argentina, Bra

zil and Uruguay, and not only lost some 300,000 people out of a total

population of 500,000, but also a

large chunk of territory. In the 1930's in a war with Bolivia in the lowland

"chaco" area, Paraguay suffered an

other punishing manpower loss.

These two wars, added to Para

guay's long history of isolation, have

brought her into the Twentieth Cen

tury as a country closer to the year

One than the year 2000.

Even in terms of the possibility of

entering into the Latin America Com

mon Market, the question arises of

what a country that produces mainly

yerba mate (Paraguayan tea) and

quebracho (a hardwood tree from which tanning extract is derived) can

contribute to a world of jets, plastics and steel mills.

As George Pendle notes in his ex

cellent book Paraguay, A Riverside Nation (London, 1967) :

Sidney Dell in his comprehensive study of LAFTA (Latin American Free

Trade Association) expresses doubt as

to whether Paraguay will get its share

of any benefits that the opening up of the common market may bring.

^till to a great extent a closed agri

cultural police-state, the future of

Paraguay can be more or less easily

plotted. It will remain "primitive."

With almost no buying-power to

secure foreign manufactured goods, life will continue to revolve around

agriculture and home industries such

as brick and tile-making and tanning.

Any widespread industrial develop ment is unlikely,

as is any attraction

of large amounts of foreign capital.

People will wear poor, out-of-date

clothes, have enough to eat (primarily

mate, manioc and maize, all locally

grown) and stay out of politics if

they wish to survive. It will continue,

in other words, to stay out of the

mainstream of South American eco

nomic development, which in itself, is already considerably removed from

"development" throughout the rest of

the world.

At the same time, though, this

agriculturally-based primitive econo

my is buffered against the dramatic and often horrifying changes being

experienced by other Latin American nations. The Guarani language with

its songs and literature, enough to eat,

a place to live, a kind of soft and attractive demographic homogeneity

.this is the expected life of the

average Paraguayan. Elsewhere in Latin America and the

rest of the Third World, however, the

picture is very different. Industriali

zation splits the nation into frag

ments, partially incorporating some

segments into usually subordinate

positions within the superstructure of international corporations whose

profits are not fed back into the na

tional economy but pumped out of the country to the head office in one of the major industrial nations. Aug

mented urbanization and a drastic

population growth hang heavily on a

comparatively slow agricultural

growth-rate. The settled and bland life of the country is exchanged for the

rapid, vertiginous life of too-rapidly

expanding cities. Hunger is wide

spread. Population movements are un

predictable and often flood labor mar

kets to the extent that there are large

masses of starving unemployed. At the same time, this picture of

rapid, unequal and painful industrial

ization obtains exactly what for the

country involved? Cars, radios, wash

ings machines, TV's. To use Henry

Adams' symbolism, isn't the Dynamo too often traded for the "spirit"?

It may be, on the other hand, that

foreign industrial exploitation is

merely one step in the development

of native industrial capacity and that while the rest of Latin America moves

along in terms of world industrial

development (although necessarily

lagging far behind), Paraguay will become more and more archaic, a

kind of "museum" or "reservation"

where the past can be visited, viewed

?and perhaps, just perhaps, envied.

?Hugh Fox

HERBERT SCOTT

THE DIVORCEE LOOKS AT HER SON

In your contrary walk

I hear his footsteps: he is home from work,

the door closing.

You throw your books on the table.

It is difficult waiting: what will I see when you enter

this room, your eyes striking my face?

Will it be him, young as morning, sweet as fresh washed sheets?

You walk into my hands

and in your body I suffer

his desire. But as we touch

you turn within yourself;

you are at odds with me.

I know: he is there,

hiding in your heart.

I put my finger on him.

Where am I? What can I keep?

Why do you look at me like this?

Summer 1969 5

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:31:54 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions