 Latin American cultural theorist Carlos J. Alonso , drawing on <unk> theory , argues that the novel is essentially a therapeutic device , designed to help move Latin America past its problematic experience of modernity . He compares this to the way the healing state of mourning replaces grief in the process of recovering from a death . Both activities are mechanisms for dealing with loss . Alonso believes that The General in his Labyrinth , by almost entirely centering the novel on the General 's death , forces 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 has the therapeutic qualities of mourning instead " . 
