El Señor Presidente
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
El Señor Presidente (Mister President) is a 1946 novel written in Spanish by Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899–1974). A landmark text in Latin American literature, El Señor Presidente explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society. Asturias makes early use of a literary technique now known as magic realism. One of the most notable works of the dictator novel genre, El Señor Presidente developed from an earlier Asturias short story, written to protest social injustice in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in the author's home town.
The Zany
The Zany (orig. Spanish el Pelele), also translated as the Idiot by some critics, appears only in the first four chapters and again at the end of chapter seven but serves a critical function in the novel. The Zany, who "looked like a corpse when he was asleep" and had eyes that "saw nothing, felt nothing" is critical to establishing the tone of the novel and triggering the novel's action. Critic John Walker argues that, by "choosing the Idiot as a representative of the innocent, the a-political, who suffer the abuses of a totalitarian regime [...] Asturias shows how dictatorship corrupts people and destroys their values to the extent that compassion for one's companion in distress ceases to exist." In fact, it becomes clear that the only happiness that the Zany experiences is through the memory of his dead mother. Asturias then shows how el Pelele, a mother-loving figure, "suffers at the hands of those who, long under the domination of the over-aggressive father figure, lack love and pity". Furthermore, el Pelele is a tool that allows readers to see the psychological effects of living under a dictatorship ruled by terror. His murderous act seems to trigger the subsequent events of the novel and to impact on all the characters. Also important is the fact that the one moment of complete happiness experienced by the Zany in the novel takes place while he is in a dream-like state. Walker argues that this serves to highlight the harsh, nightmarish world of reality in which he has been forced to live.
