The word that Decoud despises is patriot, or patriotism, and their debate over the nature of patriotism has many levels. Purely on the plot level, Decoud is of course urging Antonia to forsake the futile cause of saving Costaguana and leave the country with him. Romantically, "patriotism" refers to her patriarch, Don Jose, whom Decoud is vigorously trying to displace in her heart. Antonia is heard defending the good qualities of patriotism precisely as embodied in "Papa." Allegorically, this all translates as follows: pure idealism (Antonia), being the quest for a better world, has traditionally allied itself with patriotism: the nation has traditionally been the means whereby men have tried to better their world, and in the process they have achieved great heroism. Skepticism (Decoud) dismisses the nation as a futile illusion doomed to repeat an endless cycle of "Monteros," of carnage and destruction.

Note that Antonia neither predicts a Ribierist victory nor derives man's heroic qualities from the Ribierist future. On the contrary, she speaks in terms of the fight to get there -- the act of "labouring" for change rather than the change itself. It is the struggle, not the victory, that gives birth to "courage," "constancy," and "suffering." We are hearing the allegorical voice of pure idealism here, arguing for the redeeming power of the dream itself, abstracted from any particular ideal.