3. • Born in 1899 in Guatemala
• Grew up under the reign of dictator Manuel Estrada
Cabrera
• Parents part of upper middle class
• Moved to rural area after father was fired from being
the magistrate because he wouldn’t convict students
for protesting (Gale 112)
• Wrote books criticizing Latin America for
dictatorships, exports, and relations between
indigenous and other groups.
• Won Nobel Peace Prize for “The President”
4.
5.
6.
7. Homeless- represents the extreme inequality at the
time with them receiving the most unfair treatment
The Church- the central of the city represents how
prevalent religion was in their culture and yet their
actions strayed from their beliefs
“the favorite”- this character represents the choice
that people had to make, either comply and survive,
or refuse/oppose and be killed
Daydreams- the constant day dreams represented
the psychological toll the President was having on
everyone
8. Even though the book
itself never actually makes
reference to this particular
dictator, because of the
time period and the
authors life experience, it
can be assumed that he
was referencing this one in
particular.
01
His goal throughout
the book was not to
illustrate the hardship
each person had to go
through physically but
rather mentally
instead.
02
He used daydream
tangents to illustrate
the disfiguration of
each persons
psychological strength
throughout the
dictatorship
03
9. The plot structure was episodic that was
hard to follow at times
The author flows in and out of delusions
making it difficult to understand what is
real and what is fake
Plot follows many characters giving no
clue to how important someone is to the
story
