Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The end of The President

What an interesting read this book was. All of the metaphors and similes really helped to create many interesting and creative images, as well as feelings associated with the characters. The story was very tragic, but that made the point of it all the more real and palpable. If everyone had gotten what they wanted at the end and the forbidden love had turned out to work out like some sappy romantic comedy, the point of the brutality and injustice of dictatorships couldn't have really been exemplified. Also, it just wouldn't have provoked the same sort of reaction in the reader.
It was a dysfunctional love to begin with, a love that also depicted a level of sexism that it felt like Asturias also wanted to exhibit. Ultimately the female lead had very little say in her life, she was just the object of affection of Miguel Angel-Face, and truly had very little apparent influence. However, he also showed that she had an underlying influence on Angel-Face by having his love and affection, making him inadvertently taking a huge risk to be with her, because of the malevolence of El Senor Presidente.
Because he became a political prisoner, this tied the dramatic conflict in the book that was more character-specific back to the essential idea of the harmfulness and destruction of one man having complete control over a country. The ending was so dark and painful, everything was stated in an emotionless, matter-of-fact manner, it really helped me understand the extent of how psychopathic these sorts of regimes really are.
The Zany was a really fascinating character, as well, and really added an entire section of the book that felt more surreal and bizarre. It was also necessary because it added a depiction of the opposite end of the spectrum, as far as social classes go. He was the lowest of the low on the food chain, so the reader gets to experience what being the lowest-class human in this society feels like, all the way to the top, where the political administration lies. Whichever class one can be a part of, none are safe, secure, or out of harm's way when they're a part of a dictatorship.