This article discusses the uses of history in the novel El Señor Presidente of Miguel Ángel Asturias and proposes that this is the first Latin American novel that formalizes an elaborate fictional theory of power, which is based on an interiorized social control and on the unlimited capacity of ask all bodies. In this way, the invisible control can materialize in the illusion of freedom and scenes of torture that reveal the sinister relationship between truth and power. Through detailed analysis and close reading of certain key scenes of the novel, an interpretation is offered that explains the dynamics of the characters and the novel as a battle between the fixation of meanings from the political power and its fossilized writing, and the multiplicity of meanings of life.