The Story Archive

El Señor Presidente

Miguel Ángel Asturias · 1946 CE · Novel · Latin American · Contemporary

A beggar sleeping on a cathedral portico kills a colonel who taunts him, and the dictator's police turn the death into a case built against two enemies of the regime instead. A favourite of the President is sent to destroy one of them and falls in love with the man's daughter, then finds the machine will not let him step out of it. Written between 1922 and 1933 out of the Estrada Cabrera years, it could not be published at home.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalPsychologicalTragedy
Theme
Power & CorruptionJustice & RevengeBetrayalIndividual vs Society
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Villain / TyrantScapegoatLover
Plot structure
PolyphonicTragic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The PrisonThe CityThe Mask
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
ModernistGothic
Culture / tradition
Latin American

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