The Autumn of the Patriarch: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Autumn of the Patriarch" is a novel that presents a complex analysis of its major characters in the context of an unnamed Latin American dictator, often referred to as the patriarch. This elderly leader, whose age is ambiguously described as between 107 and 232, embodies the decay of both his personal state and the nation he rules. His character is marked by superstitions, paranoia, and a ruthless command, ruling from a chaotic palace that mirrors his declining mental state. Key figures include Manuela Sánchez, a woman of extraordinary beauty, who becomes the object of the patriarch's obsessive affection; Bendición Alvarado, his mother, who grounds him in his peasant origins; and Leticia Mercedes María Nazareno, his wife, whose initial spiritual influence wanes as she indulges in materialism.
Supporting characters such as General Rodrigo de Aguilar provide a stable yet ultimately tragic perspective within the patriarch's tumultuous regime, while José Ignacio Saenz de la Barra represents the brutal enforcement of a more systematic form of torture in the government. The story intertwines their fates, illustrating how the patriarch's identity and legacy are inseparable from the lives of those around him, ultimately reflecting on the cyclical nature of power and oppression in the political landscape. Through these characters, the novel delves into themes of memory, identity, and the tragic consequences of tyranny.
The Autumn of the Patriarch: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Gabriel García Márquez
First published: El otoño del patriarca, 1975 (English translation, 1975)
Genre: Novel
Locale: An unnamed Caribbean country
Plot: Parable
Time: The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
The patriarch, also called the general, the “All Pure,” the “Magnificent,” and so on, an unnamed Latin American dictator who is somewhere between the ages of 107 and 232. At one point, he writes a note to himself reading “my name is Zacarias” (sah-kah-REE-ahs), but because this event occurs after his senility has progressed, the writing of the note, like many other events in the novel, is suspect. Superstitious, paranoid, and ruthless, illiterate but peasant-shrewd, he rules from a palace that has been converted into a marketplace. It is overrun with soldiers, prostitutes, cows, and lepers seeking miraculous cures to be bestowed by the patriarch. The state of his palace is that of the nation, and the decrepitude of both palace and nation results from and mirrors the patriarch's deteriorating mental state. The general has the huge flat feet of an elephant, a herniated testicle that whistles at night, and no lines on his smooth hands (rendering him immune to prophecy). In a sense, he is the only character in the novel, because all other characters are rendered in relation to him and the novel fluctuates between third-person reports of his actions, first-person statements made to the patriarch, and first-person interior monologue of the general's responses to characters and events. He is the history of his nation, and as he becomes increasingly senile, he even remembers the arrival of Europeans in the New World. These memories are never convincingly proven or refuted. The novel begins with and repeatedly returns to the discovery of his body, mutilated beyond recognition by vultures in the presidential palace.
Manuela Sánchez (mahn-WEH-lah SAHN-chehs), a woman from an impoverished background whose supernatural beauty astounds the nation. The patriarch dances a waltz with her out of ceremonial obligation, then gradually becomes obsessed with her to the extent that he has reveille played at three in the morning and changes the nation's clocks to distract him from his nocturnal fascination with her. The patriarch courts her in the traditional manner, going to her house with presents, but also rebuilds entire neighborhoods to elevate her slum origins. She disappears during a total eclipse of the sun, and the general's agents are unable to locate her, although rumors abound.
Bendición Alvarado (behn-dee-see-OHN ahl-vah-RAHdoh), the patriarch's mother by an unknown father, a former prostitute who paints common birds in order to sell them as exotic songbirds. During most of her son's reign, she lives frugally in a house in the suburbs of the capital city, coming to the palace to clean up after and criticize her son. She serves to keep him in touch with his peasant roots, deflating much of the pomp and ceremony that grows about the general's person. He nurses her during her fatal illness, washing her pustulated sores with various quack remedies. After her death, her son has her embalmed and sends her corpse on a tour of the provinces. Rumors of her miraculous preservation lead to his insistence on her sainthood. This demand results in his expulsion of the Catholic church from the nation, the expropriation of church property, and the institution of Bendición Alvarado as a “civil saint.” She persists in his increasingly senile memory as the last person other than himself he remembers.
Leticia Mercedes María Nazareno (leh-TEE-see-ah mehrSEH-dehs mah-REE-ah nah-sah-REH-noh), the patriarch's wife, a former nun. A stocky girl, she is noticed, in a crowd of nuns, by the patriarch during the exodus of the church from the nation. His notice of her is enough to convince his agents to kidnap her and ship her back, stripped, to his bedchamber. He keeps her there for two years before they consummate their affair, after which she becomes the power behind his throne. With much difficulty, she teaches the patriarch to read. As a result of her influence, the cult of his mother is overthrown in favor of a reinstitution of the Catholic church; yet flowers wilt, vegetables rot, and meat festers at her touch. During the Catholic marriage ceremony that will legitimate the heir she carries, she gives birth at the altar just as the archbishop asks for the bride's response. As time passes, she gradually becomes less spiritual; as she yields to the material benefits of being the patriarch's concubine, her passion is spent in shopping at the expense of the government's credit (a ritual that is controlled by the actions of the presidential guard, who occupy the bazaar before she can arrive). Her extravagance in shopping threatens to bankrupt the already insolvent government. In a plot laid by a cabal of the ruling junta, she is torn to pieces in the marketplace, along with the patriarch's son and heir, by dogs trained to attack her outfit and the heir's uniform. A purge ensues.
Patricio Aragonés (pah-TREE-see-oh ah-rah-gohn-EHS), the general's perfect double, who is arrested in the provinces for impersonating the leader and purveying spurious miracle cures. He loyally serves the general as a stand-in (after having his feet flattened with a mallet), but his naturally lighthearted and outgoing personality gradually transforms into the taciturn and brutal nature of the general. His services hasten the growth of the general's reputation for ubiquity, a major part of the general's mystique that eventually will confound any attempts to make sense of the nation's history. When Aragonés is fatally poisoned (relatively early in the patriarch's reign), he castigates the general in a deathbed speech; the general uses the confusion following the fake state funeral to launch another of his political purges. Aragonés' death presages and becomes confused with that of the patriarch, further muddling efforts by the general's countrymen to make sense of events.
General Rodrigo de Aguilar (rrohd-REE-goh deh ahgee-LAHR), an artilleryman and academy graduate, the general's right-hand man who serves as minister of defense, director of state security, and commander of the presidential guard. His loyalty and friendship to the patriarch make him a stable reference point in the swirl of conspiracy and cabal that surrounds the government; he even has been granted the privilege of beating the patriarch at dominoes after losing his right arm to a would-be assassin's bomb. During a period of political unrest, he is late for a palace dinner held in honor of the high command; his arrival is to signal the final revolt against the dictator. After the officers fret for a while, General Rodrigo de Aguilar is brought in on a silver tray, cooked and stuffed; the general doles out equal portions to each officer present.
José Ignacio Saenz de la Barra (hoh-SAY eeg-NAH-see-oh sayns deh lah BAH-rrah), sometimes called Nacho (NAH-choh), a sadistic torturer. Described as a “dazzling and haughty man” and an impeccable dresser who always travels with a huge Doberman on a leash, he emerges late in the general's rule to bring the patriarch's realm into the twentieth century of systematic (rather than arbitrary) torture and totalitarian government. To fill the bags full of human heads that he insists on bringing the general, he butchers the patriarch's adversaries, friends, and those who are neutral, seemingly impartially, as he assumes full control of the new secret police that will, in time, come to dominate the government. The rise of de la Barra, as a representative of the old aristrocratic classes, is the final movement in the process that has brought the patriarch's revolution full circle: Any reforms or changes brought by the revolution have been gradually effaced by time and events. Nacho himself is killed in a popular uprising, instigated by the patriarch to forestall a military coup; the torturer's body is mutilated and strung up in a public square.
Emanuel (eh-mahn-WEHL), the patriarch's infant son. At birth, he is appointed a major general “with jurisdiction and command”; he shows an uncanny aptitude for politics, ceremony, and diplomacy that belies his years. He is killed with his mother by dogs trained to attack his uniform.