The Autumn of the Patriarch

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

Early on a Monday morning, an unnamed “we” enters a presidential palace—empty of people and full of decay. While they were unsure for centuries whether the palace was truly inhabited, now the visitors cannot deny its ruin. Exploring the palace, the guests discover tables in disarray, clothes strewn across the floor, and cobwebs and vegetation along the walls and crevices. The palace, now home to cows and their dung, overlooks a city visible through the windows and a sea no longer full of water but dust. In an office hidden in the wall, the body of the despot lies face down on the floor with his right arm under his head to cradle him to sleep—a position that he takes every night. Once discovered, and covered in lichens and parasites, the narrator recounts that this is the second time the despot has been found dead. It may not be the General at all, since no one is sure what he looks like.

Before his death, the General, paranoid and vulnerable, finds someone playing a parody of him in the crowd to grift citizens of the city. The man, Patricio Aragones, is brought to the palace where the president is appalled by their likeness and, upon further inspection, sees that even the lines on their palms match perfectly including their lifeline. Seeing that their fates are tied, Patricio is spared and soon (though this wasn’t the initial intention of the General) becomes his double. He is almost assassinated six times and undergoes brutal physical alterations to match the General more closely.

This leaves the General to his own meanderings—mingling with the public, playing dominoes with the many dictators whom he houses who have fallen from power and glory, and visiting his mother, Bendición Alvarado. During a cockfight, the General sees an evil omen: a cock tearing off and eating the head of its opponent while the crowd cheers. Already deluded with paranoia, the General believes that the tuba player, serenading the rooster while it murders its opponent, is plotting against him. The General has him tortured and, in the meantime, sends his double into public for fear that he’ll be poisoned. Even with these safeguards, the General remains anxious and knows, regardless of what his men tell him, that plans for his ruin are being made behind his back.

Finally, the day comes when Patricio dies from a poisoned dart. As the General moves through the crowds, the townspeople—who are not aware of where the General is, or who he is—are joyful at the apparent news of his death. When the General visits Patricio, he tells the General the truth: that he never loved him as he pretended. Patricio recounts the torture that he underwent to more accurately impersonate the General, including drinking turpentine so that he’d forget how to read and write. He tells the General that no one loves him; he is president of nobody, and he might as well beg for death since his power is false and yet a prison. If the General were to abandon his seat, only death would come to him by the people whom he thinks love him.

Patricio dies with only the General beside him, covered in his feces and tears. The General stages a funeral for Patricio as himself and is horrified by the sight of “his” body, decorated and prepared for death. He’s horrified and mystified, too, by the response of the people: both his admirers and his enemies drag the corpse from the funeral pyre and drag it through the streets, attacking the ceremony and the palace. The townspeople burn his pictures and throw their waste at the body as it is dragged through the streets, and the General curses death and what it can take from him. As various parties, generals, and ambassadors join to determine what follows the General’s death, the General reveals himself. Although everyone attempts to flee, the presidential guard massacres them. His return from death is revered as immortality, verifying his god given right to preside over this territory.

The General tracks down and tortures everyone who celebrated his death, feeding them to crocodiles or skinning them alive, and he rewards those who mourned him. The General convinces himself that the revolt was the fault of a few generals attempting to steal power and not because the people hated him as Patricio said. To restore order and give the people more to do, the General provides entertainment, education, and invents more labor. Everything seems to return to life as it was before the mutiny. The General continues to visit the former dictators to whom he has provided asylum. He reflects on the arrival of colonists trading useless wares with his people for exports that will, in turn, make the colonists a lot of money. The General never actually sees the colonists.