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Within a few decades of Christopher Columbus 's landing on the coast of what is now Venezuela in 1498 , South America had been effectively conquered by Spain and Portugal . By the beginning of the 19th century , several factors affected Spain 's control over its colonies : Napoleon 's invasion of Spain in 1808 , the a... |
The early 19th century saw the first attempts at securing liberation from Spain , which were led in northern South America by Bolívar . He and the independence movements won numerous battles in Venezuela , New Granada and present @-@ day Ecuador and Peru . His dream of uniting the Spanish American nations under one ce... |
= = Plot summary = =
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The novel is written in the third @-@ person with flashbacks to specific events in the life of Simón Bolívar , " the General " . It begins on May 8 , 1830 in Santa Fe de Bogotá . The General is preparing for his journey towards the port of Cartagena de Indias , intending to leave Colombia for Europe . Following his re... |
On the first night of the voyage , the General stays at Facatativá with his entourage , which consists of José Palacios , five aides @-@ de @-@ camp , his clerks , and his dogs . Here , as throughout the journey that follows , the General 's loss of prestige is evident ; the downturn in his fortunes surprises even the... |
After many delays , the General and his party arrive in Honda , where the Governor , Posada Gutiérrez , has arranged for three days of fiestas . On his last night in Honda , the General returns late to camp and finds one of his old friends , Miranda Lyndsay , waiting for him . The General recalls that fifteen years ag... |
The General and his entourage arrive at the port of Mompox . Here they are stopped by police , who fail to recognize the General . They ask for his passport , but he is unable to produce one . Eventually , the police discover his identity and escort him into the port . The people still believe him to be the President ... |
The group spend a sleepless night in Barranca Nueva before they arrive in Turbaco . Their original plan was to continue to Cartagena the following day , but the General is informed that there is no available ship bound for Europe from the port and that his passport still has not arrived . While staying in the town , h... |
The General finally receives his passport , and two days later he sets off with his entourage for Cartagena and the coast , where more receptions are held in his honor . Throughout this time , he is surrounded by women but is too weak to engage in sexual relations . The General is deeply affected when he hears that hi... |
The General is now told by one of his aides @-@ de @-@ camp that General Rafael Urdaneta has taken over the government in Bogotá , and there are reports of demonstrations and riots in support of a return to power by Bolívar . The General 's group travel to the town of Soledad , where he stays for more than a month , h... |
The General never leaves South America . He finishes his journey in Santa Marta , too weak to continue and with only his doctor and his closest aides by his side . He dies in poverty , a shadow of the man who liberated much of the continent .
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= = Characters = =
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= = = The General = = =
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The leading character in the novel is " the General " , also called " the Liberator " . García Márquez only once names his protagonist as Simón Bolívar , the famous historical figure , whose full title was General Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios , on whom the General 's character is base... |
At the beginning of the novel , the General is 46 years old and slowly dying on his last journey to the port of Cartagena de Indias , where he plans to set sail for Europe . As Palencia @-@ Roth notes , " Bolívar is cast here not only as a victim but as an agent of Latin America 's tragic political flaws " . The fortu... |
In an interview with María Elvira Samper , García Márquez has admitted that his portrayal of Bolívar is partly a self @-@ portrait . He identifies with Bolívar in many ways , since their method of controlling their anger is the same and their philosophical views are similar : neither " pays much attention to death , b... |
= = = José Palacios = = =
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The novel begins with the name of José Palacios , who , here as with the historical figure of the same name , is Bolívar 's " long @-@ serving mayordomo " . As literary critic Seymour Menton observes , Palacios 's " total identification with Bolívar constitutes the novel 's frame " . Palacios constantly waits on the G... |
= = = Manuela Sáenz = = =
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Manuela Sáenz is the General 's long @-@ time lover , his last since the death of his wife , 27 years earlier . Her character is based on Simón Bolívar 's historical mistress Doña Manuela Sáenz de Thorne , whom Bolívar dubbed " the liberator of the liberator " after she helped save him from an assassination attempt on... |
= = = General Francisco de Paula Santander = = =
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As he reflects on the past , the General often thinks and dreams about his former friend Francisco de Paula Santander . The historical Francisco de Paula Santander was a friend of Simón Bolívar , but was later accused of complicity in a plot to assassinate him and sent into exile . In the novel , the General remembers... |
= = = Field Marshal Antonio José de Sucre = = =
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Field Marshal Antonio José de Sucre is portrayed as an intimate friend of the General . The historical Antonio José de Sucre , the Field Marshal of Ayacucho , had been the most trusted general of Simón Bolívar . García Márquez describes him as " intelligent , methodical , shy , and superstitious " . The Field Marshal ... |
= = = Minor characters = = =
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The novel revolves around the fictionalized figure of Bolívar and includes many minor characters who are part of the General 's travelling party , whom he meets on his journey or who come to him in his memories and dreams of his past . Sometimes they are identified by particular quirks or tied to small but significant... |
= = Major themes = =
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= = = Politics = = =
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In The General in His Labyrinth , García Márquez voices his political views through the character of the General . For example , Alvarez Borland points out that in the scene where the General responds to the French diplomat , his words closely reflect García Márquez 's 1982 Nobel Address . The diplomat is critical of ... |
The novel was published in 1989 , when the Soviet Union was disintegrating and the political map was being radically redrawn . Reviewing The General in His Labyrinth in 1990 , the novelist Margaret Atwood pointed to another instance of García Márquez raising political issues through the character of the General . He h... |
= = = Figural labyrinth = = =
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According to literary critic David Danow , the labyrinth of the novel 's title refers to " a series of labyrinths that are contingent upon matters of history , geography , and biography ... that consistently and conclusively result in a dead end " — in this case , the General 's own death . His final voyage along the ... |
García Márquez depicts the General 's body itself as a labyrinth . His doctor observes that " everything that enters the body , adds weight , and everything that leaves it is debased . " The General 's body is described as a " labyrinth coming to a literal dead end " . The labyrinth is also expressed in geographical a... |
= = = Fate and love = = =
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Bolívar 's fate is known from the beginning , and García Márquez constantly uses images which foreshadow this ending . For instance , a clock stuck at seven minutes past one , the exact time of the General 's death , appears repeatedly in the novel . This sense of fate is introduced in the epigraph , which comes from ... |
The theme of love is central to the novel . Bolívar had a reputation as a womanizer , and books have been written on his philandering ; but as depicted in this novel , during the last seven months of his life , the General could no longer engage in the activities that had fueled that reputation . García Márquez mentio... |
= = = Numbers and religious symbols = = =
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Numbers are an important symbolic aspect of the novel . The book is divided into eight chapters , almost all of equal length , which represent the eight @-@ year love affair between the General and Manuela Sáenz . The General 's last hours are marked by an octagonal clock . Allusions to the number three are even more ... |
Rodríguez Vergara observes that the General is like a supernatural being , simultaneously dying and being surrounded by symbolic circumstances such as rain , fiestas , and the plague . The novel begins with Bolívar immersed in purifying waters , in a state of ecstasy and meditation that suggests a priestly ritual . On... |
René Girard has interpreted the recurrence of rain in the novel as one of the purifying rituals the community must undergo in order to wash away the contagion of violence . The fiestas may represent another ritual of purification and also symbolize war . Fiestas are held to honour the General when he arrives at a town... |
= = = Melancholy and mourning = = =
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Latin American cultural theorist Carlos J. Alonso , drawing on Freudian theory , argues that the novel is essentially a therapeutic device , designed to help move Latin America past its problematic experience of modernity . He compares this to the way the healing state of mourning replaces grief in the process of reco... |
Latin America 's history and culture , Alonso suggests , began with the loss of Bolívar 's dream of a united continent and as a result has developed under a melancholy shadow ever since . Thus , by forcing the reader to return to the origin of modernity in Latin America and confront its death in the most horrific way ... |
= = = Challenging history = = =
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García Márquez comments on the nature of historical fact by drawing attention to the way history is written . The novel recreates a time in Bolívar 's life that has no historical precedent , as there is no record of the last 14 days of his life . In García Márquez 's account readers observe Bolívar intimately , seeing... |
The General in His Labyrinth also confronts the methods of official historians by using an oral style of narration . The narration can be considered an oral account in that it is woven from the verbal interactions of everyday people . Alvarez Borland explains that the advantage of this technique , as discussed by Walt... |
The historian Ben Hughes commented on the novel : " The Liberator 's British confidants , including Daniel O 'Leary , were amongst the closest figures to the general in this period . Nevertheless , they are ignored in the novel . Instead , Márquez uses the character of a fictional Colombian servant , José Palacios , a... |
= = Comparisons with other García Márquez novels = =
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In an interview published in the Colombian weekly Revista Semana on March 20 , 1989 , García Márquez told María Elvira Samper , " At bottom , I have written only one book , the same one that circles round and round , and continues on . " Palencia @-@ Roth suggests that this novel is a " labyrinthine summation ... of G... |
Like the Patriarch in García Márquez 's The Autumn of the Patriarch , Bolívar was an absolute dictator . The Patriarch is never identified by name ; Bolívar , too , is identified chiefly by his title . Bolívar also invites comparison with Colonel Aureliano Buendía in One Hundred Years of Solitude : both characters bel... |
Palencia @-@ Roth notes that critics have been struck by the humorless elegiac style of The General in His Labyrinth ; its dark mood and somber message is similar to that of The Autumn of the Patriarch . Love is a theme common to both Love in the Time of Cholera and The General in His Labyrinth , but the latter is con... |
Isabel Alvarez Borland , in her essay " The Task of the Historian in El general en su laberinto " , claims that " ... while El general en su laberinto is in many ways a continuation of García Márquez 's criticism of Latin America 's official history seen in his earlier works , the novel contrasts sharply with his prev... |
In a summary of Edward Hood 's book La ficcion de Gabriel García Márquez : Repetición e intertextualidad , García Márquez is characterized as an author who uses repetition and autointertextualidad ( intertextuality between the works of a single author ) extensively in his fiction , including in The General in His Laby... |
= = Genre = =
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Critics consider García Márquez 's book in terms of the historical novel , but differ over whether the label is appropriate . In his review of The General in his Labyrinth , Selden Rodman hesitated to call it a novel , since it was so heavily researched , giving Bolívar 's views " on everything from life and love to h... |
David Bushnell , writing in The Hispanic American Historical Review , points out that the work is less a pure historical account than others suggest . García Márquez 's Bolívar is a man " who wanders naked through the house , suffers constipation , uses foul language , and much more besides . " He argues that document... |
= = Reception = =
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The General in His Labyrinth was relatively poorly received by the general public in the United States , despite the praise of critics . Critic Ilan Stavans , who himself praised the book as " one of the writer 's most sophisticated and accomplished " , attributes this to the novel 's time period and to its profusion ... |
The novel generated huge controversy in Latin America : some Venezuelan and Colombian politicians described its depiction of Bolívar as " profane " . According to Stavans , they accused García Márquez of " defaming the larger @-@ than @-@ life reputation of a historical figure who , during the nineteenth century , str... |
More positively , Nelson Bocaranda , a Venezuelan TV commentator , considers the novel to be a tonic for Latin American culture : " people here saw a Bolívar who is a man of flesh and bones just like themselves " . Mexican author Carlos Fuentes agrees with Bocaranda saying : " What comes across beautifully and poignan... |
Novelist and critic Barbara Mujica comments that the book 's English translator , Edith Grossman , fully captures the multiple levels of meaning of the text , as well as García Márquez 's modulations in tone . García Márquez himself has admitted that he prefers his novels in their English translations .
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= = Publication history = =
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