The power of love(I hope not to cliche)

I want to suggest that this book is about the power of love. I know this sounds cliché, but hopefully I can show you that it’s about “love” in really kind of a cool and complicated way.

“Love has made you free” pg 50. Bolivar set this girl free, but she didn’t accept. Instead she stayed where she was. Bolivar’s love had set her free, but her disinterest in freedom left her as chained as before. This I think is fair analogy for Bolivar’s entire conquest. He set all Latin America free, but they didn’t care enough about this freedom to maintain it.

I will argue that both the girls, and latin america's lack of love have made them essentially powerless, and human, where those who love immensely are all powerful.

When Bolivar’s wife died, and he committed himself to the people, he became unstoppable, if not invincible. When he gave his love to everyone, he really became god like. Before his wife dead however, he was just a regular guy. Later when he became disillusioned with his failures his health deteriorated. In a dream at one point, imagines a boy asking him if he loves him. He was scared that he no longer loved these people. Power might then be understand as something which is determined by the scope of our love. Bolivar who loved everyone was unstoppable, but as he became disillusioned(and felt less love for them perhaps), he began to waist away.

Pg 153 at the end of the first paragraph the general recalls a letter he wrote to Manuela saying “My love for you is steadfast”, in the next paragraph, the next line down in fact, we are told that how his dream began to brake away just as it was realized. I want to suggest the reason the empire collapsed is because he let himself love this women. In narrowing his love, he lost these godlike powers which had allowed him to bring together this country(and I do think there is something to say about magical realism here).

Poor Sucre, another unstoppable general was killed not long after letting him self love a women. Pg 141

Perhaps the reason the general deteriorated at such an incredible pace has something to do with an opposite kind of power of love. Where love makes you invincible, a broken heart destroys you, and he managed to stay alive for so long because every now and then, as that love which confers god like powers stirred.