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The Autum of the Patriarch deals with a topic already classic to Spanish American literature: the perennial dictator, seen in an archetypical light. The originality of the novel, therefore, does not lie in the theme but in it's peculiar structure, which hinges upon a complex system of dialectic opposites.
This dissertation deals with the inner structure of the novel and reveals its mechanism.
The basic generating force of the narration is the struggle between opposing elements engaged in incorporating one another into their own essence, very much like the heavenly struggle between Lucifer and God.
On one level, there is the opposition between the past and the present. Those who rememorate alongside the corpse of the patriarch bear the mark of the countless years of dictatorship and the oppressive density of the past does not allow them to face the present. At the same time, the present seeks to establish itself in the conscience of the people by interpreting and elaborating upon the past.
On another level, there is the struggle between the patriarch and the people, as contradictory inner forces shaping the national consciousness of those who elaborate on the history of the nation during the 24 hours of the wake.
These two pairs of opposites--past/present, patriarch/people--find their structural expression in the corresponding oppositions of character/narrator and narrative time/time of the narration.
The multiplicity of pairs of opposites at different levels constituting the process of the recit coverges on the level of the main dialectic contradiction between the spiritually colonized people ("colonized" in the sense of Fanon) at the beginning of the 24 hours of the wake, and their liberated consciousness at the end of that period, in the last pages of the book.
This process of inner liberation undergone by the nation during those 24 hours resolves itself in the form of a dialectic synthesis on a higher level of the recit that integrates and supersedes all it's main aspects:
Thesis anti-thesis synthesis
(a) Thematic aspect.
the colonized people- -the patriarch- - -the liberated people
(b) Structural aspect.
First narrator- - - - - - -protagonist- - - - -Last narrator
(c) Linguistic aspect.
multitudinary
adressor- - - - - - - - -discourse- - - - - - -single adressor
In a final analysis, the protagonist of the novel is not the patriarch but the people. The autumn of the patriarch becomes, at last, the long delayed spring of the people.