SOURCE: Kooreman, Thomas E. “Poetic Vision and the Creation of Character in El coronel no tiene quien le escriba.” Romance Notes 33, no. 3 (spring 1993): 271-77.

In the following essay, Kooreman illustrates “how the Colonel's language and intuition reflect a poetic view of his environment” in No One Writes to the Colonel.

A close reading of García Márquez' El coronel no tiene quien le escriba reveals that structure and language are intricately brought together to create a profound character study. The author moves the Colonel through three stages of development. First, he presents him to the reader as quixotic and unaware of his own power over reality; secondly, he moves the Colonel to a stage of self-doubt, a moment of accepting practical approaches to the problems of old age and poverty; and, finally, he brings the protagonist to a state of self-awareness, in which he discovers that his...