Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Portugal, Jose Alberto

Keywords

Latin American Literature, Masculinity, Dictators

Area of Concentration

Literature

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with how a community could allow and even participate in its own subjection by a brutal dictator. I examine the representations of dictatorial power in two Latin American novels: El oto�o del patriarca by Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez and La fiesta del chivo by Mario Vargas Llosa. I present an examination of the creation and dissemination of a public image that the dictator uses to affirm his power and to subject his people. I believe this to be the key mechanism that contributes to the public's belief that the dictator has either a right to rule, or else is so intimidating that the public is paralyzed to overthrow him. I then articulate the manner in which the novels expose the contradictions of the public image in the presentation of the dictator's private truths, which appear in intimate spaces often inhabited only by the dictator and the reader. This exposure of the falsities of the dictator presents a criticism of the dictator and perhaps provides a clue for the public's ability to empower and protect itself from future manifestations of authoritarian figures.

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