First of all, I need to make a suggestion, If someone feel sympathy for the dictators that I mentioned before, please don’t take this article as a personal attack an consider it as a simply opinion.
In order to understand my comment I think that we have to remember some parts of the first chapter of the book: the dictator’s dichotomy between himself and the external world, the authoritarian and compulsive of his personality, the paranoid of his thoughts and the rudeness of his norms.
I the Supreme, I think, is the best description of the dictators that Latin America have nowadays. The different faces of the supreme, can describe the Chavez personality and the maquiavelism of the presidents behavior and the Castro´s dictatorship period.
Hugo Chavez
In 2007 Chavez ordered to close RCTV, the last private TV station that Venezuela had. Among that TV Station, the Chavez detractors were criticizing the government.
In I the supreme, the president has fear of everybody, even the prisoners in the jail or Patiño or all the people in the country. This fear is demonstrated by Chavez; when he started to think that RCTV represented a barrier to his goals, he had fear about the power of the TV and then he decided to close it.
The personality of the president in I the supreme is rude and compulsive. The supreme is always insulting to everybody. Then again, Hugo Chavez is always insulting everybody, the last year he said that Vicente Fox was “el cachorro del imperio” (the United States pet).
The supreme doesn’t have trust in anybody, then again almost all the Chavez employees has been fired, and some of them now are enemies of the president.
Fidel Castro
Maybe Fidel Castro is not as rude or compulsive as Hugo Chavez, but if I think in Cuba, I think in a country that has been in a long dictatorship. The supreme is 84 years old! The Castro´s age!
Then again, all the dictatorships in Latin America have similar characteristics and, therefore, the dictatorship novels can be interrelated. For more information, check the next post!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
SPAN312 The President 2
The second half of The President is the most interesting part that I have read in years! Its dramatization and the way in which the story is presented kept my attention for a lot of time and it was no difficult to finish the book. Now I can understand the functions of all the characters that Asturias used and the importance that they have in the development of the book.
I think that the essential part of the book is the story of Angel Face, and as a background we have examples of the practices that the dictator has in order to follow his own wishes. I am impressed of how the net among all the characters has the same direction and how Asturias used all the characters as tools to describe the government.
In this kind of government you have to be careful always, it is difficult to understand why Angel Face didn’t realize the president’s plan. The entire story has the same way. When Canales was blamed when he was innocent, I didn’t understand why, but with the president’s reaction after the Camila’s wedding, it is obvious that the president was in love with Camila. Therefore, I don’t know why Angel Face was thinking that it won’t be a problem to travel to the US.
Why the reference of the US? Perhaps Asturias used this reference to express freedom; Angel Face would have freedom if he went to the United States? It is interesting, because Asturias never mention that he was talking about Venezuela, but at the same time, he mentioned as a reference of freedom the US.
The story is developed in a period short period of time (a week), It seems that Asturias want to express that these practices are very common, as a routine in the government. It was no difficult for the president or for the war minister to do the entire things that they did and it was normal for the system.
The Asturias style is really amazing, the surrealistic tools that he used to make the president’s image, his stylistic resources and the way in which he make his descriptions among the book made me feel like if I was inside the story. It was no difficult to read and, instead of that, all the comparisons and the metaphors that he used help me to imagine all the psychological situations that were involved in the book.
I think that the essential part of the book is the story of Angel Face, and as a background we have examples of the practices that the dictator has in order to follow his own wishes. I am impressed of how the net among all the characters has the same direction and how Asturias used all the characters as tools to describe the government.
In this kind of government you have to be careful always, it is difficult to understand why Angel Face didn’t realize the president’s plan. The entire story has the same way. When Canales was blamed when he was innocent, I didn’t understand why, but with the president’s reaction after the Camila’s wedding, it is obvious that the president was in love with Camila. Therefore, I don’t know why Angel Face was thinking that it won’t be a problem to travel to the US.
Why the reference of the US? Perhaps Asturias used this reference to express freedom; Angel Face would have freedom if he went to the United States? It is interesting, because Asturias never mention that he was talking about Venezuela, but at the same time, he mentioned as a reference of freedom the US.
The story is developed in a period short period of time (a week), It seems that Asturias want to express that these practices are very common, as a routine in the government. It was no difficult for the president or for the war minister to do the entire things that they did and it was normal for the system.
The Asturias style is really amazing, the surrealistic tools that he used to make the president’s image, his stylistic resources and the way in which he make his descriptions among the book made me feel like if I was inside the story. It was no difficult to read and, instead of that, all the comparisons and the metaphors that he used help me to imagine all the psychological situations that were involved in the book.
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