The Effect of Tyrants
The central theme of the novel is the effect that despotic tyrants have upon everyone they rule. The title character is technically a very minor character in the sense of how often he shows up or actually speaks. But his presence is a visceral character in every single scene because his power trickles down to drive the narrative and events of everyone else.
Reality
Much of the novel is structured as illusory dream sequences that blur the line between what is reality and what is…fake. This structure parallels the conceptual difficulties of living in a dictatorship in which the tyrant in power becomes the author of the truth. The subjective application of what is fact and what is fiction by the title character thus serves to effectively create a shifting reality which all who suffer under his oppression must constantly strive to keep in place, so that they can respond to it without becoming victims.
A Rejection of Ambiguity
A common thread running through the author’s work is strongly on display in The President. The 20th century saw the rise of ambiguity as a means of properly reflecting a confusing world. In comparison with the characters of many other Nobel Prize winners, the characters in this novel may seem less dimensional. In fact, some might even argue that are rigidly constructed puppets whose strings are being pulled by the author to make a point. And that is the point. Much of that ambiguity in modern literature is supplied by authors living in political milieus in which ambiguity is allowed. The author is strongly suggesting that such moral and ethical confusion does not exist under the thumb of despots. In this social structure, the world is far more austere and can be viewed in starkly drawn black and white, with little opportunity for gray.
