Historical Context

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Chile is a slender country stretching along the western edge of South America. The Andes Mountains extend throughout the inland border. Initially, Araucanian natives inhabited the area, but the Spanish colonized it in 1550. Unlike other South American nations, Chile lacks abundant gold or silver deposits, resulting in slow colonial growth. However, Chile possesses significant reserves of iron, copper, and nitrates. During the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, these resources became vital for manufacturing. Chile's nitrates were especially important for producing fertilizers, which gained value as global economies transitioned from agriculture to urban industry, and for making explosives. By the early twentieth century, Chile had become prosperous through nitrate production.

A major issue for Chile was the unequal distribution of its nitrate wealth. A small segment of the population controlled the country's riches. As the economy expanded, urban areas grew rapidly, leading to uncontrollable development and the emergence of slums. The government prioritized the interests of the affluent: starting in 1891, Chile operated as a Parliamentary Republic, with the parliament selecting the president and cabinet. Although the parliament was elected, elections were dominated by wealthy business elites.

In the early twentieth century, labor movements advocating socialist and anarchist principles gained momentum, seeking to redistribute wealth from the rich to the general populace. In urban areas and northern nitrate and copper mines, where Mistral grew up, unions encouraged workers to challenge employers for better wages and working conditions. Since the government largely represented industrial owners, it used its forces to suppress workers. A notable event in the labor reform struggle was the 1907 massacre at the Iquique miners' camp, where government troops killed striking workers. Economic tensions intensified during World War I from 1914 to 1918, as global demand for nitrates declined. The situation worsened when Germany developed synthetic nitrates for explosives during the war, severely impacting the Chilean economy.

During the 1920s, when "Fear" was penned, Chile's government was undergoing significant changes. In 1920, Arturo Alessandri became president, a move intended to prevent a popular uprising against the government. Although Parliament selected Alessandri as a moderate to safeguard their interests, he emerged as a genuine reformist once in office. He gained popularity among the populace but struggled to pass any reforms through Parliament, leading the nation into deeper financial issues during his term.

In 1924, Alessandri bypassed the legislators and appealed directly to the electorate, gaining enough public support to pass his reform legislation. This led to a coup by right-wing military factions, who seized control of the government in September 1924. By January 1925, the reformists had amassed sufficient strength to stage a second coup, resulting in a new constitution. This constitution granted more power to the general populace while reaching a compromise with wealthy landowners to secure their cooperation. This constitution remained in effect until the early 1970s when Salvador Allende was elected as the first president with a Marxist platform in a non-Communist nation. Three years into Allende's presidency, he was overthrown by a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, with backing from the United States. Pinochet ruled for nearly two decades and eventually appointed himself as a Senator for Life.

Literary Style

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

In its original Spanish, "Fear" does not adhere to a specific rhyme or rhythm. This lack of structure suits the poem's narrator, who sleeps on a straw mattress and fears that her daughter might become too sophisticated to associate with her. She is portrayed as a humble woman, unlikely to possess an overly polished or refined manner of speaking. However, certain sections of the poem do follow rhythmic patterns, reflecting the poet's skill rather than the character's nature. The poem is primarily, though loosely,...

(This entire section contains 636 words.)

Unlock this Study Guide Now

Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

iambic, meaning it frequently uses the iamb rhythm. An iamb consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. For example, the line ‘‘andnev-er fly a-gain to my straw bed" begins with an iambic pattern before deviating, while "and when night came no lon-ger’’ is mostly iambic but includes an extra syllable. The presence of iambs provides a semblance of iambic structure, though it's inaccurate to claim the poem has a consistent rhythm. The poem also features the ‘‘Cretic foot,’’ a pattern of stressed-unstressed-stressed syllables. The line repeated at the start and end of each stanza includes two Cretic feet: ‘‘I don't want / them to make.’’ While "Fear" contains distinct rhythmic patterns, they don't form an overarching rhythmic design.

Other aspects of the poem convey the author's command over the ideas presented. Each stanza consists of eight lines and begins and ends with a variation of the same two lines. There is no fixed length for individual lines; although they don't all have the same syllable count, there is minimal variation. There are no extremely short or long lines. The narrator is depicted as moderate—the poem revolves around the fear of change—but her simplicity precludes her ideas from being expressed in an elaborate, intricate format.

Literary Heritage

When Mistral penned "Fear" in the 1920s, the Modernism movement, which influenced global artistic theory, was reaching its peak. Literary theorists use the term "modernism" to describe various changes that emerged at the start of the twentieth century. It generally refers to a reaction against literary tradition, spurred by how psychoanalysis altered the understanding of personal behavior and Marxism reshaped perceptions of social behavior. In poetry, Modernism involved abandoning traditional forms and notions of beauty, favoring words that evoked emotional impressions over those that merely sounded beautiful. Many modernist movements, like surrealism, imagism, and dadaism, prioritized creating a strong emotional impact over maintaining logical coherence.

In Latin American nations, literary movements typically mirrored those in Europe during that era. At that time, a distinct literary theory had not yet emerged in Latin America, and most of the literature being read and discussed originated from Europe or the United States. For example, when Mistral's collection Tenderness was released, there was no established body of children's literature in Latin America. She had to creatively utilize the modernist approach of straightforward language and draw from the folktales of her homeland.

In numerous ways, her poems in Tenderness foreshadow what is arguably Latin America's most significant contribution to global literature: the magical realism movement, which began in the 1960s and persists today. Magical realism, typically linked to fiction, blends the somber tone of fatalism associated with Realism with supernatural events that readers recognize as not occurring in our world. Some of the earliest and most popular examples of this genre include Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and Argentine writer Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, from 1966. Both works feature elements that would be labeled "fantasy" in other books, but they are presented with utmost seriousness. As Márquez, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, described, the tone he aimed to create ‘‘was inspired by the way my grandmother used to tell stories. She recounted things that seemed supernatural and fantastic, yet she narrated them with complete naturalness.’’

Compare and Contrast

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

1924: The United States' interest in Chile and other South American nations is primarily focused on their production of valuable ores. In Chile, the Chuquicamata copper mine and the Tofo Iron Mines are known for producing metals of a higher purity than those found in North America.

Today: Chile remains a leading producer, accounting for around forty percent of the world's copper. However, advancements in transportation have also positioned Chile as a significant exporter of fish and fruit in the global market.

1924: Farmers in rural California, believing the government was taking their water (as reflected by the poem's distrust of an overarching "them"), resorted to dynamiting the Los Angeles aqueduct seventeen times in open defiance.

Today: Ranchers in the western United States continue to engage in open and sometimes violent disputes with the government over water rights.

1924: A right-wing military coup removed Arturo Alessandri from the presidency of Chile, a position he had held since 1920. However, his supporters helped him regain the presidency the following year.

1973: General Augusto Pinochet became the president of Chile following a coup supported by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, which ousted the elected president, Salvador Allende. Pinochet governed the nation as a dictator for nearly two decades.

Today: Pinochet, facing trial in Spain for crimes committed during his presidency, has been deemed too ill to stand trial. He returned to Chile, where he has been granted full immunity for his actions while in office.

1924: British author A. A. Milne published When We Were Very Young, his first collection of poems written for his son, Christopher Robin.

Today: Milne's legacy endures through his Winnie-the-Pooh books, also written for Christopher Robin. The Disney corporation owns the copyright and generates millions of dollars annually from Pooh-related videos, toys, games, and clothing.

Media Adaptations

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

In 1999, Babbitt Instructional Resources released a videocassette titled Gabriela Mistral: Poems of Chile, accompanied by a teacher's guidebook and script.

Mistral is also highlighted in the bilingual filmstrip and cassette package titled Twentieth Century Poetry / Poesia del Siglo Veinto, distributed by Films for the Humanities in Princeton, N.J., in 1979.

You can find Gabriela Mistral Reading Her Own Poetry on a vinyl record. It is read in Spanish and was issued in 1971 by the Library of Congress, under catalog number LCM 2055-2056.

Bibliography and Further Reading

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

Further Reading

Edited by Sara Castro-Klaren, Sylvia Molloy, and Beatriz Sarlo, Women's Writing in Latin America: An Anthology, published by Westview Press in 1991, provides an intriguing introduction. While the introduction might be challenging for students, the anthology itself presents a diverse range of examples.

Previous

Critical Essays

Next

Teaching Guide

Loading...