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Gabriel García MárquezA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The General is the title character of the novel and the central protagonist. His character is an interpolation of the South American leader Simón Bolívar, viewed through a fictionalized lens. As with the real-life Bolívar, the General succeeds in winning independence for many countries in South America and seeks to unite them into a single republic called Gran Colombia. At the point where the audience is introduced to the General, however, this dream has faltered. The General is an old man who has been ousted from the presidency, and he is being sent into exile, far away from the country he helped to found. One of the General’s defining traits is his obsession with self-image. As he approaches the end of his life, he becomes keenly aware of how the people of Gran Colombia view him. He wants them to see the swaggering, conquering, romantic hero of his youth, but his body and his status no longer match this image. As his political project falls apart and his body fails him, the General is forced to reckon with his own limitations. This reckoning turns him from a conquering hero into a tragic figure, a man who is unwilling to abandon his idea of himself as a grandiose legend.
By Gabriel García Márquez
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Gabriel García Márquez
Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon
Gabriel García Márquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Gabriel García Márquez
Death Constant Beyond Love
Gabriel García Márquez
Eyes of a Blue Dog
Gabriel García Márquez
In Evil Hour
Gabriel García Márquez
Innocent Erendira
Gabriel García Márquez
Leaf Storm
Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Gabriel García Márquez
News of a Kidnapping
Gabriel García Márquez
No One Writes To The Colonel
Gabriel García Márquez
Of Love And Other Demons
Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
One Of These Days
Gabriel García Márquez
Strange Pilgrims
Gabriel García Márquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel García Márquez, Transl. Gregory Rabassa
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
Gabriel García Márquez
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Gabriel García Márquez
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Fate
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Hispanic & Latinx American Literature
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Magical Realism
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Mortality & Death
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Nobel Laureates in Literature
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Politics & Government
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Spanish Literature
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