Latin American cultural theorist Carlos J. Alonso , drawing on Freudian theory , argue that the novel is essentially a therapeutic device , designed to help move Latin America past its problematic experience of modernity . He compare this to the way the healing state of mourning replace grief in the process of recovering from a death . Both activities are mechanisms for dealing with loss . Alonso believe that The General in his Labyrinth , by almost entirely centering the novel on the General 's death , force the reader to confront the horror of this process . In Alonso 's view , the reader is meant to pass from " a melancholy relationship vis @-@ a @-@ vis the figure of Bolívar to a relationship that have the therapeutic qualities of mourning instead " .