The General in His Labyrinth

“No one loves us here.”

The General is keenly aware of the fickle balance between love and power. As the President of the Republic, he believes that his political mandate and the justification for his power is built on the love of the people. After uniting Gran Colombia, he believes the people love him. With his power waning, however, he feels this mandate evaporate. Without the love of the people, the General loses his justification for ruling.

“He always considered death an unavoidable professional hazard.”

The General is, first and foremost, a military man. To him, death is an "unavoidable professional hazard" (8). To the younger General, however, death was always associated with battle, fighting, and glory. As he approaches old age, he faces the prospect of fading from the world in a quiet way. He believes that dying alone in exile is pathetic, especially compared to the glorious, near-mythical death he envisioned in his youth.

“The time he has left will hardly be enough for him to reach his grave.”

After being toppled from political power, the General is sent into exile. The further he goes from his presidential palace and the further removed he is from power, the more he feels his time slipping away. Without the prospect of ruling Gran Colombia and freeing millions of people from colonial control, he has lost his reason to exist.