1. The General in
his Labyrinth
Introduction
Introduction
By: Kalile E. and Rossana f.
2. Who is Simon Bolivar
• Monumental figures in history
• Memorialized
• - Statues: Central Park, Avenue of Americas, Middle of
Washington DC, Plazas
• - Money Currency: Bolivares Fuertes
• - Country: Bolivia (others)
• Mythic proportions
• - Great Influence, Amazing accomplishments, Learned from
failures, Romantic
3. Love life
• - Dramatic short marriage – had to break up due to independence from spain
(women was Spanish)
• - Heartbreaker
• - During War w/Spain he had a love affair with Manuela Saenz for 8 years
• Born in Caracas - 1783/1830
• He died of Tuberculosis- age 47
• Summarized his life in a quote- “He who serves revolution, plows the sea”
• He was a contradictory man
4. • Named Liberator in the City Council of Caracas after a successful
campaign- 1813 to recapture Western Venezuela from the Spanish
(proclaimed independence for the second time)
• 1813- declared “War to Death” against Spaniards
• Following year – the Congress of 2nd republic (Venezuela )- granted him
dictatorial powers in both civil & military affairs
• He was a bloodthirsty tyrant and merciless killer
• Bias against local politicians
5. • Americans turned on him when he wrote the constitution of Bolivia that
said he was going to end slavery and the president was going to be a
life term one and was going to be able to choose his own successor
• They called him the George Washington of South America
• North American president William Harris said that Bolivar wanted to
turn Gran Colombia into Monarchy
• Called North American system ‘A government so sublime that it might
more nearly befit a republic of saints’
6. • 1811- Thomas Jefferson said that ‘ the cruel arts of their (the Latin
Americans) oppressors have enchained their minds, have kept them
as incapable of self-government as children
• Privileged American born descendants of European- spaniards were
called Criollos (creoles)
• Spanish - Local white landowners and aristocrats
• English - Children of great ethnic and cultural jambalaya pot of New
Orleans
• Peninsulars( Spaniards living in Spain) and Creoles had economic
conflicts.
• During the Bourbon reforms the peninsulars in america attempted to
deprive creoles of certain social and economic rights
7. The Start
• Jan 1799 (15 years old) Spain > education
• Fell in love w/Maria Teresa Rodriguez del Toro y Alayza
• 1801 Bolivar proposed marriage
• 1 condition
• traveled to Paris
• 1802 retuned to Spain > Maria and Bolivar married
• Venezuela
• Jan 1803 Maria Teresa died
• Reason of involvement in the independence
8. • Garcia Marquez > description of event
• The San Mateo Plantation- lost his father (3 years old), mother (9
years old), wife (20 years old)
• Wife died 8 months after the wedding (fever or domestic
accident)
• Birth into history
• Neither- death or trying replacing her
• Dreams
• Buried her at the bottom of a watertight oblivion = living w/out her
9. A New Simon Bolivar
(preparation)
• Madrid to Paris
• Napoleon as emperor
• deeply moved by (Napoleon) > w/out aristocratic birth became the most
powerful ruler in Europe
• Studied >impt. political works & philosophical thinkers (Montesquieu to
Spinoza) / American & French revolutions - preparing him for his birth into
history
• Italy- met w/ Simon Rodriguez (childhood tutor)
• Rome- Simon Rodriguez knew Bolivar’s future
• 1804-1805 Bolivar became to see himself taking an active role (in the
movement to achieve independence)
10. • 1807 Bolivar returned to Vnzla
• Mexico, Vnzla, to Buenos Aires colonies > taking action against representers of the
Spanish crown
• 1810 latin americans- beginning of war for independence
• Act of rebellion against Bonapartist monarchy & in favor of local autonomy
• Broke in Caracas (April 19), Buenos Aires (May 25), Bogota (July 20), Dolores, Mexico
(Sep. 16), Santiago, Chile (Sep.18)
• Great Britain (protection and support denied)
• England - met w/ Francisco de Miranda (Precursor of Independence)
• End of 1810, both reached Caracas
• Separation > Miranda - (imprisoned him)
• Lost strategically Puerto Cabello to the monarchists = oblige to go into exile
• Escaped Vnzla, reached Cartagena in Nueva Granada
11. • 1812 Antonio Jose de Sucre, victory over Spanish forces (Ayacucho)
• 1824- Bolivar involved in constant warfare
• Battles/Conquering Andes on horsebacks and frontiers
• (Culo de Hierro= Iron-Ass) by soldiers
• Endless political and diplomatic > Independence (northern portion of South A.)
• Santander > Bolivar’s nemesis
• (Cassandro) secret name = New Granada general Francisco De Paula Santander
• Became his: great friend one time, greatest gainsayer, chief of staff, the man he
appointed president of Colombia during (cruel campaigns for liberation of Quito, Peru,
Bolivia)
• Santander brave and effective (academic training) 2nd man in the movement of
independence/ 1st in legal codification of the Republic
12. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(Writing)
• Period were Bolivar’s life fills history books > tireless writer & personal history writing by
(Daniel O’Leary) a officer / Garcia searched through 34 volumes
• Garcia Marquez focused > Bolivar’s final days, travels along the Magdalena R. from Bogota
to the coasts (sail for Europe & into exile)
• Last voyage of Bolivar > least documented period
• no writing left > 14 calamitous days
• No straight-linear narration (beginning - end) / he wrote circular- creates its own momentum
• Spiral witting- chronological (diagram of memory)
• “News of a Kidnapping” >1st published in the UK
• Violence & narco-traffickers (Medellin Cartel) was not the purest Columbian fiction
• Memoir > “Living to Tell the Tale”
• Fiction & journalism
13. • In The General in His Labyrinth, Garcia’s technique: reflects symbolically,
• -subject theme of the novel
• -Bolivar’s condition at the end of his life
• Bolivar’s end: fatally ill, achievements > denied by people for whom he fought his wars & won victories,
failures & mistakes followed him, his power & glory were stripped was by ingratitude, obliged to leave the
continent whose independence he has sacrificed his youth, health and fortune...
• Best friend (Manuela Saenz) & worst enemies (Francisco de Paula Santander) - were not there with him
• Bolivar weight was 88 pounds, weighted 10 pounds less before he died
• Measured 4 centimeters less /Feet & hands were small
• The General in His Labyrinth- journey is a multiple rebirth, 1st into own physical death, then into the
immortally of his fame, finally endless changes in the world’s image of him
• oldest of his portraits (anonymous miniature painting in Madrid) he was 16 years old / another in Haiti (32
years old)
• Aristocrats in Lima called him Sambo
• Painters began to idealize him
