 Because the appearance of the President is infrequent in the novel, readers' perceptions of him are formed through other, often minor, characters and episodes.As such, literary critic Himelblau states that "the novel does not develop the figure of the President as a fictive personage, does not follow the President through a series of actions or diegetic complications that lead to psychological-existential changes or transformations of his character".Miguel Angel Face (orig.