43 pages 1 hour read

Gabriel García Márquez, Transl. Gregory Rabassa

The Autumn of the Patriarch

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1975

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Themes

The Pursuit of Power

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses murder, suicide, and sexual assault.

Márquez explores the ambiguity and unruliness of power through the General, demonstrating that one can exercise but never possess ultimate power—especially over death and love. Though the narrator reflects that, in the earlier part of the General’s regime, “power was a tangible and unique matter, a little glass ball in the palm of his hand” (49), it eventually evades the general and anyone who attempts to steal it from him, save the foreign powers that eventually take everything that the General has. The “glass” used to represent this power is indeed fragile and potentially dangerous.

Power is precarious in the novel; anyone who can gain the upper hand on the General can steal his power from him, even if only for a moment. The glass ball continues as a symbol of power when the General tells a visitor in his office that “this little glass ball […] is something a person has or doesn’t have, but only the one who has it has it, boy” (98). The paradox inherent in this idea is that anyone can take power; in the novel, the wrong people so often do.

Related Titles

By these authors

SuperSummary Logo
STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Plot Summary
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover placeholder
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Transl. Gregory Rabassa
Guide cover image
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide
Gabriel García Márquez
Guide cover image