García Márquez based his fictional dictator on a variety of real-life leaders, including Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of his Colombian homeland, Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain (the novel was written in Barcelona), François Duvalier of Haiti, and Venezuela's Juan Vicente Gómez.

The general's thoughts are relayed to the reader through winding sentences which convey his desperation and loneliness alongside the atrocities and ruthless behavior that keep him in power.

Dictators and strongmen such as Khamenei, Franco, Somoza, and Trujillo managed to hold sway over the populations of their nations despite internal political division.

[citation needed] García Márquez mocks the practice of conferring high military rank on the young heirs of autocrats and the overspending of their families and cronies.

A frighteningly accurate portrait is drawn of the intelligence director who soon directs the general's every move and constructs an apparatus of terror and political repression.