 In El Señor Presidente, hope is suppressed by the dictatorship. As the Judge Advocate states in the novel, "the President's first rule of conduct is never to give grounds for hope, and everyone must be kicked and beaten until they realise the fact". It can be argued that Camila represents hope in the novel because both her father and husband were able to persevere under the dictatorship by thinking of her; however, the President destroys this sense of hope with false stories. When the thought of her loyalty is eliminated, both her father and husband die because they have lost the hope of returning to her. Furthermore, Camila's happiness with her child and their escape to the countryside can be seen as the one glimpse of hope in an otherwise dark and disturbing ending. For critic Jean Franco, it is love that offers what little hope there is in the novel: "The system is undermined only by love — the love of an idiot for his mother, a woman trying desperately to save her husband from death."
