‘El Señor Presidente and the Reality of Latin American Experience.’
Miguel Ángel Asturias’s novel is somewhat divided in the novelty of its approach. Does El Señor Presidente have a completely new way of defining the reality of Latin American experience, or is it just a different twist in a mixture of the Indigenismo and dictator novel? Defending the argument, Asturias successfully established the earlier use of magical realism in El Señor Presidente. Through it, the narrative does show attempts to define a true Latin American experience: Asturias aspires to respect Indigenous culture and make it stand out in its own right. However, René Prieto suggests that, like prior Indigenista authors, the author overindulged and exaggerated with stock phraseology and wordplay “It seems forced and brilliant, weighed down with cumbersome platitudes and yet brimming with original passages.”
El Señor Presidente’s novelty isn’t only questioned due to the already established use of Indigenismo exaggeration. While the magical realism element is new, the dictatorship backdrop isn’t. Assumed to be based on the dictatorship of Manuel Estradas Cabrera, the characters’ fear and despair radiate from a daunting figure that seems all too real. Key elements from the dictator novel, such as the importance of authoritarianism and its emphasis on power, lessen the singularity of El Señor Presidente as a new way of expressing Latin American experiences, (seeing as the genre started with Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1845),
The storyline constantly shifts, making it contradictory and of a seemingly dual nature: the contrast between Europeans and Indigenous minorities, reality against the imaginary…However, here lies the writer’s success in expressing the Latin American experience. Albeit confused and violent at times, Asturias narrates the struggles between the two as the authentic reality. Social marginalization, nationality disputes and colloquial language all become central themes within the novel.
Asturias then goes one step further. To
El Señor Presidente’s novelty isn’t only questioned due to the already established use of Indigenismo exaggeration. While the magical realism element is new, the dictatorship backdrop isn’t. Assumed to be based on the dictatorship of Manuel Estradas Cabrera, the characters’ fear and despair radiate from a daunting figure that seems all too real. Key elements from the dictator novel, such as the importance of authoritarianism and its emphasis on power, lessen the singularity of El Señor Presidente as a new way of expressing Latin American experiences, (seeing as the genre started with Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1845),
The storyline constantly shifts, making it contradictory and of a seemingly dual nature: the contrast between Europeans and Indigenous minorities, reality against the imaginary…However, here lies the writer’s success in expressing the Latin American experience. Albeit confused and violent at times, Asturias narrates the struggles between the two as the authentic reality. Social marginalization, nationality disputes and colloquial language all become central themes within the novel.
Asturias then goes one step further. To