On page 301,when the disputes between the union workers and lawyers of the "banana company" were being under deliberation, the whole context of these events would fall under the category of a political allegory. The banana factory would be mentioned at this point of the book and most of all this company would portray as another party that seeks to consume the land of Macondo of lifeblood and resources.The banana factory would mirror an authoritarian government government that is ruled by a face that can change, when they speak of Mr.Brown, apparent attempt to travel in disguise on pg.301 "Later on, Mr.Brown was surprised traveling incognito in a third class coach and they made him sign another copy of the demands...the following day he appeared before the judges with his hair dyed black and speaking flawless Spanish" (301)This whole set up of how they describe the building as "A gated city with the towering banana company" (341)This description of the edifice would give its' purpose in the novel as a ominous meaning.
Next I would like to talk of the meaning of the pigs' tail in the story. Throughout the novel, animal imagery in childbirth becomes the growing theme in the novel due to the beginning of the novel on pg.20 when the narrator describes how the family members abjects the breeding between the two characters:" They were afraid that those two healthy products of two race that interbred over the centuries would suffer the shame of breeding iguanas"(20)The passage can also illustrate racial tensions between these races and also how this "myth" came to creation.The story also reveals that Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia were cousins, through the marriage of Ursula's aunt to Jose Arcadio Buendia's uncle. And throughout the whole story several incidents where there characters have fallen into acts of incest towards one another and the quote that foretold of how if inbreeding within the family continue,one could suffer the damage of having animal/human hybrids. Most notable scenes of incests were The "Rebeca/Jose Arcadio"and the "Aureliano/Amaranta Ursula"flings. the author, Garcia Marquez wanted to give the characters a freedom to let go of their inhibitions and succumb into these acts only to convey the message of how ones temptations can ultimately have others suffer the consequences especially "animal conception".
In the third part of the novel you see what the beginning of the book foreshdowed. The destruction of the peaceful Macondo. It all began when Jose Arcadio Bunedia decided to introduce the city to new technology that the gypsies had showed him. Throughout the novel Maconda transforms from this little innocent city to this war raging and technology ridden little monster. No has the values that Maconda had somewhat thrived on, like loyalty or truth. Everyhting was about decieving and beating out the person sitting next to you. Aureliano Segundo was an example he was using Petra Cotes so that their animals would be fertile during the rain. One time when she was tired of making fertile animals and wanted to sleep Aureliano told her that "These aren't times for things like that" (322). There was no emotinal connection just a pure selfish driven motive. That is somewhat what our world is like today. We started of hundreds of years ago so is simple and then little by little we to have become a world of deceit and lies. However throughout the novel Ursula has tried to stay true to what she knew. Even in her state of delereium she still had her bearing when she told Aureliano Segundo (who was trying to take advantage of her in her state) "When the owner appears.. god will illuminate him so he can find it" (342). Ursual lived to be between 115 and 122 years old. She was the symbol of morals in this novel. In the society that we live in today those tend to get lost. As did many morals of the Buendia family.Many of the family members died premature deaths becasue they lost sight of what was right and wrong. Ursula showed that staying with your morals and being true to your self would reward you in the end.
I agree with the above comment of the characterization of Ursula. She was the only one who did not fall for the inventions of the gypsies or the ways in which the rest of her family sinned. Every person that was a part of the Buendia family sinned in one way and did not live as long as Ursula did.
When Macondo first started, there was no deaths because it was simple and remained pure. By the end of the book, many people died from war, murder, sickness or age which were factors that no one used to worry about. I compared this to the Bible - the part where Adam and Eve was promised eternal life as long as they did not sin, and once they did, the gift of eternal life was taken away. Once the people of Macondo started to sin their eternal life was taken away too.
I completely agree 100% with bond_smoka's analysis of the pig tail but would like to add on the irony of Ursula's fear of incest. Ursula seems to fear to be spawned from her attempt to keep the family in one piece. She has been shown earlier in the book to keep a close watch on her grandchildren as well as pick at their flaws further emphasizing her fear of the consequences of incest. Yet it is ironic in the way that while Ursula does try to bind the family together yet is scared of incest. The pig tail symbolizes a mark or a burden received by giving into one's temptations. Of course the pig tail is exemplified on Aureliano the third who was the illegitimate child Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula. The mother died after giving birth and Aureliano, the father so ashamed of Aureliano (III) neglected him and Aureliano (III) was soon dead shortly after birth. Lovely image, no? But it does get the point across.
I think the ending is tragic. Aureliano and Armanta Ursula they conceived a child and everything that Ursula had ever said to the family because the incest and its consequents came true. The ending finally bore the complete downfall of the entire family. Armanata Ursula's death and the final death of another Buendia, the child. After so much regret and pain this family suffered nothing had lasted in it but death and sadness that come from it. I think the rain and destruction of the Macando ultimately also lead to their downfall, the rain symbolized the end and rebirth of something. The end of the Buendia and the rebirth of something new.
Before I start, I just want to ask whether everyone else referred to the family tree of the Buendia family as much I did while reading. The repetition of names and events were so confusing, I had to constantly refer to that page in order to keep everything in order and straight.
The ending of the book was amazing. It definitely tied up the whole entire text perfectly. In the end, Marquez creates such a contrast with the beginning. Macondo was once filled with proud and opened people, who left the doors to their houses wide open. In the end, the town was described as "dead," "desolate," "dusty," etc. The doors and the windows to the Buendia's house was nailed shut, and the people became more withdrawn from their neighbors. For example, when the gypsies first came to Macondo, they were impressed with the people. At the end, they felt as if the town had fallen to death and dust.
The beginning of the book was mainly about the Buendia family and how they reacted to foreigners who visited Macondo. As the book progressed, the Buendia family, who was basically the root of Macondo, was less talked about: it was more about how Macondo had undergone changes brought on by these foreigners. This basically foreshadows the end of the Buendia family and the end of Macondo as well.
Another symbolic element in this text is Amaranta Ursula's habit of leading her husband around on a leash. This made me realize that the men of the Buendia family had always had a weak spot for women. Women ended up being the deciding factor in everything they wished to do. For example, Colonel Aureliano Buendia fell in love with Remedios, who he gave up many things in order to obtain her hand in marriage. Jose Arcadio with Pilar Ternera, and then the gypsy girl who he ran away from home with. Amaranta with her two men, who died due to her impenetrable heart.
The rain that lasted for years in One Hundred Yars of Solitude washed Macondo of its violence and its negative occurences, making it a symbolic element. It uprooted "every last plant of the banana groves" (315), which Ursula was so against. It did away with the memory of the massacre of the banana workers during the strike. Macondo was left in ruins by this endless rain, meaning that all the new buildings and new technologies were done with.
Also, the repetition of "one hundred years" in the last few sectiond definitely highlighted its importance. It led up to the discovery of Melquiades' parchments and the end of the Buendia family, which lasted for a century.
I pretty much enjoyed this text. Marquez did an excellent job in tying everything up in the end.
I want to begin by saying that this book surprised me. I judged it and then I thought...ughh...an extremely long book, better get it over with...but then again, as I was reading, I found myself at times not being able to put it down. But, mary, i agree with you 100% because as advised, I made a photocopy of the family tree and referred to it oftenly while reading. It was actually helpful. But to get on with the analyses.
I wrote down notes while reading the last third of the book because I knew it was going to be important. I also jotted down the rain as a symbol. I remember reading How To Read Literature Like a Professor and he brought up the many symbols rain could represent. On page 308-309, "...he could find no trace of the massacre. The streets were deserted under the persistent rain and the houses locked up with no trace of life inside." The rain washed away every trace of the bloody massacre at the station and any proof whatsoever that there was any Banana Company at all. Thomas C. Foster in the How To Read...says that rain could symbolize rebirth or rejuvination of some sort. Macondo was born again, into what it used to be. "The survivors of the catastroph, the same ones who had been living in Macondo before it had been struck by the banana company hurricane, were sitting in the middle of the street enjoying their first sunshine...but in their hearts they seemed happy to have recovered the town in which they had been born," (331). The townspeople were glad even though a majority of Macondo was destroyed.
The rain also changed certain characters of the Buendias too. Jose Arcadio's desire for war were thrown away, along with the war itself. Aureliano Segundo became more solemn at home with Fernanda. The rain was all he needed for a reality check. He lost all the weight that he had put on and he began to resemble his twin brother Jose Arcadio Segundo.
I found it interesting how Ursula died on Good Friday (page 342). In the Bible, Jesus died on Good Friday, too. He died on that day for our sins to save the world from oblivion in response to the wrath of God. As steph113 says, Urula was the only one who stayed true to her morals and didn't fall into the disorder that befell Macondo. Yes, I agree with her reference to the fall of Adam and Eve, but I just find it interesting how she died on Good Friday, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross...
The pigs tail in the novel is one of the deformities that a couple gets when they are involved with incestry, and is most feared when giving birth to a child. I was wondering how the Buendias were going to get by and get lucky, with normal looking children and not one sign of physical deformity. But, I didn't expect any less though for Amaranta Urula and Aureliano's baby to not be marked, plus it was towards the end of the book. The pigs tail is a symbol of incestry, of which we already know. I agree with Paul_In_A_Nutshell about it being a sign of yielding to temptation. The child dies a horrible death, just as Melquiadez predicted in his parchment work. I had a feeling that the red ants would have some signicant role in the novel because of its constant repetion. Urusula would try to get rid of them but they kept coming back. It was like a foreshadowing for me.
I want to bring up one last point. The cobwebs and dust that kept reappearing in the Melquiadez's room. When one thinks of dust and cobwebs, something that resembles aging comes to mind. She kept cleaning the room, but the dust kept returning. I see it as a way of saying that no matter what happens, no matter what natural disaster, things can't go back to the way they used to be and that time is always moving forward, even if it looks like its moving back, especially in the Buendia household. Catalonian also mentions this too in one of his letters, "...he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart...and that wherever they might be they always remeber that the past was a lie, that memory has no return..." (403). It is true. Yes, the rain that lasted for many years did away with most of Macondo, but it also did away with the memories. No one seemed to remeber the Buendias anymore.
I finished the book last night, and wow, was I a little taken aback by the ending. I wasn't expecting a happy ending, from how the family consisted of less and less people and more and more solitude, but I didn't predict the complete destruction of the Buendia line.
In addition to the symbols mentioned earlier that were scattered through out the novel, I noticed also the recurrence of the color yellow. I thought the color serves as a warning to the family, such as the case with Meme and the yellow butterflies. Does anyone else have any insights?
WOW!!! I finally have access to a computer. I finished ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE a few days ago and have been trying to remember everything I had to say so that i could type it now.
Well to start off I absolutley loved the book. Yes, it was long and at times confusing with all the characters' names, but I have to admit that I was glued to the novel. Marquez has this way of being so descriptive that the reader can easily imagine everything he or she is reading. Throughout the novel I often forgot that it was fiction and I becaame so engrossed in the lives of the characters.
Moving on to the topic of the banana company that otehrs talked about already: First off, I thought it was just another example of how outside forces slowly destroyed the town of Macondo. The banana company reminded me of the Dutch men who went into Africa during the age of Imperialism and made the natives pick rubber. The men would be overworked and underpayed and very often beaten for not meeting the day's quota. In the case of the novel, the situation was not so severe, but I jsut tied the two things together (because I'm a history geek). Another point I wanted to mention about that part of the book was when the massacre occured. How could it be that no one recalled the event? Only the one boy who was on Jose Arcadio Segundo's shoulders and Jose Arcadio Segundo himself rememeber that the guns went off and all the workers and their families were killed. From pages 302- 310, Marquez writes about the event and Jose Arcadio Segundo waking up in a train-car filled with the bodies of the 3000 dead people. Pages 306-307 remind me of stories of the Holocaust in which Jewish families were packed into train-cars and transported to camps or in the movie Hotel Rwanda where the dead bodies were being tossed into massive graves. How is it that the government got the people of Macondo to believe that the massacre never happened???
I also wanted to add on to what Mary already mentioned about how much the story changed from the beginning to the end. In the beginning Macondo was so alive with the people building thier new homes and starting new lives. I would easily ;picture the colorful houses and all the green around the town. By the end the town was so depressing and i picture it being all browna and dried out. In the beginning the Buendia family was growing with the town and by the end its lineage died just as life in the town was dying as well.
I wanted to bring attention to a passage in which Aureliano went crying and seeking help to Pilar Ternera because he was in love with Amaranta Ursula. Pilar asked the girl's name and "When Aureliano told her, Pilar Ternera let out a deep laugh, the old expansive laugh that ended up as a cooing of doves. There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendia that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axel," (396). In this passage Marquez does an excellent job of describing the legacy of the Buendia family and how their fates keep repeating. The image of the axel wearing out is an allusion as to the end of the Buendia family.
One final thing I wanted to comment on was the end of the novel. By the very end Melquiades' papers were revealed and they said that, "The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants," (413). I found it sort of magical how Melquides pretty much new everything all along. He new the fate of the Buendia family and it was interesting how Jose Arcadio Buendia died at the tree and how Aureliano died being eaten by ants. It made me think about fate and destiny and about how much in life we can control and how much is already layed out for us. As much as the characters tried to do their own thing and follow different paths, they all had the Buendia fate which made them all alike.
Oh yes, one last thing (I promise). What does Marquez mean by, "races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth," (417)? Its such a poetic way of ending the novel (with the title in it) but what exactly is meant by it?
The third section of One Hundred Years of Solitude is completely different from the beginning of the book, due to the fact that many characters have died and the village of Macondo has entirely fallen apart.
The changes that Macondo underwent were to be expected seeing as how the Buendía family resided there for over a century, however, I never imaged the village to undergo such catastrophic changes as it had. Although war, death, and violence all played huge factors in the reasons as to why the village changed drastically, as Nessa stated rain also brought about a change to Macondo. I agree with her because after the village underwent the rain storm that lasted over four years, although many people were found dead and major companies such as the banana company were destroyed, the original aspects of the village still remained. “The survivors of the catastrophe, the same ones who had been living in Macondo before it had been struck by the banana hurricane…” (331) appeared to be better off, despite their losses. People such as José Arcadio, opened his home to the children of the town so they could have an area to play in.
A major portion of the third section was devoted to Amaranta Úrsula and her relationships with Gaston and Aureliano. In her relationship with Gaston, she really took control of their marriage and I agree with Mary that the women of Macondo made decisions in their relationships that always appeared to result in their favor. With Gaston, it was clear that he wanted to please her and even though he “had more than enough money to live anywhere in the world” (379) he chose to put his dreams of creating an airmail service on hold to live with Amaranta Úrsula in Macondo for over two years. However, the idea of women taking the lead role in their relationships altered a bit when Amaranta Úrsula began a relationship with Aureliano. They seemed to be able to communicate better with one another, and they appeared to have a better understanding of each other’s desires. A turning point in their relationship occurred when they were faced with the task of naming their child and Amaranta Úrsula, for many years, wanted to name her son Rodrigo, however, Aureliano made the decision that their son would be named after him. I wonder why Amaranta Úrsula was more willing to compromise with Aureliano than she was with her husband, Gaston.
I also agree with Paul In A Nutshell about how Aureliano’s pig tail represented his parents’ weakness of succumbing to the temptations of having a relationship with one another, even though they were related. However, I wonder why Márquez decided to denote a child of incest with a pig’s tail, but pigs are know to be animals that are unkept and they get into a lot of mess. In my opinion, Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano’s actions reflect that of a pig in a way because Amaranta Úrsula was unkept in not staying faithful to her husband and they both created a mess by having relations even though they knew the risk of possibly having a child that would be born with a pig’s tail.
The final pages of the book brought many ideas to a close, one of which, I thought included the idea that people only have one life to live, so they should take advantage of different things. The closing line of the book stated “… races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth” (417) and I felt that this statement was very powerful and significant to the text because many of the main characters allowed themselves to fall into a state of solitude. For instance, José Arcadio Buendía, consumed all of his time with various inventions, Amaranta distanced herself from men she strongly loved and Fernanda del Carpio distracted herself from her husband, Aureliano Segundo’s adultery. The Buendía family’s cycle of living in solitude not only kept them from seizing the many different opportunities in life, this cycle followed them from one generation to the next and ultimately led them all to their downfall. I feel that Márquez wanted to establish the idea that by consuming one’s life with a single idea, leads to a life of solitude and in order to truly live life to its entirety, a person must allow himself to be opened to exploring all of the opportunities one is confronted with in their lifetime.
First, I want to address Ashley8's question of why Aureliano was able to get his way with the naming of their child (the last Aureliano, with the tail of a pig- SO MANY AURELIANOS!) despite the fact that Amaranta Ursula was dead set on naming him Rodrigo. I don't think that this should be interpreted as a question of which gender was stronger (the idea of gender equality intrigued me with the insights afforded by this topic on this blog). Keep in mind too, that the characters "had no time to think about" (412) the entire history of Ursula's fears of breeding mutants in the family, since Amaranta Ursula started bleeding profusely (consequence of pregnancy)and within a day, she died. Obviously, the naming of the child would be unimportant while Amaranta Ursula's life was in danger. Indeed, when she died, Aureliano abandoned the child to his grief. I think the author's purpose in maming the child Aureliano instead of Rodrigo is to connect the child's fate to that of the Buendia family. Rodrigo would have been a totally new, separate name. The naming of the family members is significant with the connection of each person with the idea of "solitude." Some qualities are even inherited with names: Aurelianos are all similar to the original Aureliano, and the "original" Amaranta, who has sexual contact with her nephew, is similar to Amaranta Ursula, her namesake who does the same thing. By attaching the child with the name Aureliano, Marquez binds him to the Buendia family. His fate is fulfilled in accordance with Melquiades's predictions.
I loved the novel for its storyteling style. Like Cynthia, I forgot that it was fiction. Some elements are obviously fictional. Four year rainstorm? (Even Noah got 40 days, let alone 1460 days)Levitation? People back from the dead? I think that this novel was written in a "mythical" style. Macondo, which booms up and then becomes deserted again, and the entire Buendia family (who are blessed with extraordinary longevity- if the numbers could be believed) seem more mythical than factual. Perhaps this was intended. It's a credit to the author that his narrative voice is sure and certain, a quality that enhances the story's mythical nature rather than detracting from it. (Myths are, after all, sometimes told as fact)
In the last part of the novel, Ursula’s long time fear of having a child in the family bearing the stamp of incest, a pig’s tail came true. Marquez’s use of irony again is evident in that after the many generations of the Buendia family that come about due to incest, it is the last offspring that bears the notorious pig’s tail. The pig’s tail can be called a motif as it is a constant fear of Ursula’s. It reemerges with every act of incest. What is ironic is that the pig’s tail seems to be a punishment better then that of the curse of solitude that all the Buendias face. In a literal sense, the pig’s tail is the symbol of consequence for incest but it may also be a symbol of the end to the century long suffering of an entire family. The pig’s tail is the sign of the end to not only the years of solitude but also the end to the Buendia family line. The fear and expectation of Ursula is confirmed but in some ways it is a relief that the last Buendia will not suffer from unrelenting solitude. Going on bond_smoka’s comment on the recurring animal imagery in the novel, I find that Marquez contrasts and combines human characteristics with animal ones to produce a primitive feeling in the city of Macondo and in its inhabitants. The disobeying of all rules of acceptable behavior by societal standards reinforces this idea of primitiveness that Marquez conveys. They have no boundaries as to whom they love.
There also exists a surreal element to the novel as Stevie wonder ii and c-rod has pointed out. This sense of unreality contributes to the unexplainable events that occur in the novel such as Remedios the Beauty’s elevation into the heavens. Melquides and the gypsies as well add to the sense of surrealism. I find the parchment of Melquides and his influence in Macondo to be critical. Once deciphered, Aureliano II discovers that it is Melquides who writes the life story for each member of the Buendia family. Melquides was the person who introduces Macondo to the new inventions and discoveries and it is also he who has sparked the interest of the Buendia men in their thirst for knowledge. Melquides becomes the true writer of the novel as he decides the fates of all of its characters. By the end of the novel, I, like ashley8, believe that Marquez wants to show the consequences of solitude, of its suffocating isolation that disallows one to live life to the fullest. At times, solitude may seem to be a blessing of peace such as in the case of Ursula, but in many cases, solitude not “[having] a second opportunity on earth” (417) at life.
The writing style of Márquez is new to me. It contains flashbacks from different characters and forms a complete story. Yet those memories from the past are extremely detailed. I like this technique since it is unique. I think that one of the main ideas of the book is that history repeats itself over and over again. Many Buendía members continue to fall in love with their relatives, such as Aureliano José and Aureliano (by Mauricio Babilonia), or live in the solitude, like Colonel Aureliano and Rebeca. Even though there are some attempts to stop this pattern, their efforts are failure. They are unable to change the characteristics of the Buendía family. In order to reinforce this idea, the author uses the same name (Aureliano and Arcadio) on different characters to show that these family members repeat the cycles of their former selves. But, personally, I dislike the author’s attempt because it is quite confusing to keep track of whom he is talking about. In real life, history repeats itself too. For instance, Napoleon and Hitler both attacked Russia when they controlled most of the Europe. Yet both of them lost in the war due to the winter in Russia. As a result for both rulers, they began to lose their power. I agree with Paul about the idea of pig’s tail. Many family members of Buendía inhibit themselves from the act of incest. Yet the story of pig’s tail still appears at the end because Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano (by Mauricio Babilonia) do not know their aunt/nephew relationship. Even though the Buendía family tries its best to avoid the tragedy, it still happens to this race, which makes the story to become ironic.
OK. Reaching the end and I don't ever want it to...
Quick observations: The pig's tail will eventually be the Buendias' downfall. This is Ursula's worst fear and always has been, and of course for the author, irony is always the best way to go. The pig's tail = end of the Buendias.
Rain, rain, go away. This is exactly what "How To Read Literature like A Professor" was talking about. Rain has a "cleansing effect" that I believed in the beginning would purify the town back to it's original state.
irony!
The town becomes desolate and deserted in the end instead of the utopia it once was. It also seems like the Buendias are the only people left who called Macondo home. I want to disagree with babaloo because although I want to believe it is a rebirth, It seems as if though the whole world has finally crumbled away along with Macondo. I think it is the final end.
In an answer to c-rod's question, I think that by "A Hundred Years of Solitude" the author refers to how the Buendias kept to themselves in the end. Every Buendia dies isolated, and alone. They do marry outside of the family, but always return into themselves...(if that makes any sense) The family fell apart within. The incestuous relationships led to the death of the only Buendias remaining, thus wiping them off the face of the earth, never to return again.
I wonder what Marquez's political surroundings are, because this story held highly communist ideals and sympathized greatly with revolutionaries. To be honest I was greatly confused by the whole "war", but I believe that what really mattered anyway was the fact that the liberals lost every time.
I also have noticed that the banana company was "westernization" of the town, since "Mr. Brown" was the catalyst of the tragedy. This displays extreme negativity towards the westernization of cultures.
I have a few more pages to go, but Marquez is officially one of my favorite writers and I am definitely looking into reading many more of his work.
As to everyone’s confusion over the names, I took the advice of a former AP student and made a copy of the family tree, and used that as a bookmark. Even with that however, I often found myself confused, referring to each character by a trait; in the earlier stages of the book I often referred Aureliano Buendia as “the kid who could, like, see the future kinda?”
The ending of the story reminded me of José Arcadio Buendía’s vision of Macondo’s future: first a town with mirror houses, which later transformed into the dream of houses made of blocks of ice. Whereas before, the mirror houses would simply reflect the outer world, copying its appearance, the descent into an ice city was realized in an odd way, by melting away, just like the Buendía family.
As to the color yellow, like Taylor asked about before, I personally thought it didn’t have any real symbolic meaning that was a widely known fact. I thought that Marquez used it as a color that represented change, and in turn, destruction in his story. Whether it was the faded yellow parchments that Melaquides wrote, telling of Macondo’s destruction, the yellow butterflies that followed Mauricio Babilonia, the yellow train that brought about society and its destructive properties to Macondo, or the yellow flowers that rained when José Arcadio Buendía passed away, the color yellow is often seen in the tale. It simply represents a kind of force, appearing in the crucial events, and tying them together in some way.
The book as a whole was enjoyable, if not confusing most of the times, which definitely slowed me down a bit. While I understand the symbolism and meaning behind the repeated names, would it have killed him to put a Jr. or Such-and-such the Fourth?
Seemingly many of the more prominent ideas were already discussed including the tidy way Marquez concludes his book by tying up loose ends. On that note, I found it very ironic that the twin brothers Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo were mixed up in burial. Considering the opposing characteristics of the individuals (in relation to their names), one can assume that they were in fact switched as boys and it seems befitting that they were reswitched by the conclusion, thus reconnecting with their true identities. Their very deaths add to the mystical aura that was prevalent throughout the book as they both died at the same time, bound by the deep-rooted union of twins.
To continue Nessa's observations about the red ants, they seemed to symbolize the beginnings of degeneration not simply within the Buendia household but in Macondo in general. Once Ursula passed, and simultaneously her will of iron, all succumbed to the rampant deterioration that culminated to 4 year rainstorm.
"'What did you expect,' he murmured. 'Time passes.' 'That's how it goes,' Ursula said, 'but not so much.' When she said it she realized that she was giving the same reply that Colonel Aureliano Buendia had given in his death cell, and once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle," (335). This passage is defining of the book as the book's development is hinged to the fact that time is circular and continuously repeats. This sort of cyclical behavior is prevalent even within specific characters as Aureliano made the goldfish to simply melt them down, to use the gold to make more goldfish, or how Amaranta Ursula made messes within their home so she could then clean and so on. All the characters and events were connected through time which truly produced a circle in Marquez's vision.
Wow, was I surprised at the ending. That of course is most fresh in my mind, but Meme’s son also came home in the third part. (At least in the way I divided the book he did.) Poor thing, hidden in a closet. That definitely taps into Fernanda’s psychological issues. People were saying they had trouble remembering the book was fiction at times. I felt the same way, but when I read about Meme’s Aureliano being locked in the closet, and at one point escaping, naked and dirty, I was snapped back to remembering it was fictional. Kids locked in closets don’t usually survive since they don’t get the touch and interaction required, but anyway, that is a WHOLE different subject. Sorry, tangent. Another part of the book that totally freaked me out is when there was a whole shooting at the station. The shooting itself didn’t frighten me, but what happened after the fact did. Jose Arcadio Segundo went to a woman’s home to escape, having just awoken in a sea of bodies. He was talking to her, and said “’There must have been three thousand of them,’ he murmured. ‘What?’ ‘The dead,’ he clarified. ‘It must have been all the people who were at the station.’… ‘There haven’t been any dead here,’ she said. ‘Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has happened in Macondo.’”(308) To deceive people about a death of that high a number is amazing. There had to have been tons of people who were missing after that, yet people still didn’t believe it. Was JAS hallucinating, or going insane, or what? I don’t think he was though, because when he was holding the little boy to see before the shooting, it was said that “Many years later that child would still tell, in spite of people thinking that he was a crazy old man, how Jose Arcadio Segundo had lifted him over his head and hauled him, almost in the air, as if floating on the terror of the crowd, toward a nearby street.”(305) So it must have happened. It reminds me of the people who still deny the Holocaust ever happening. It’s like… people wrote journals on it, how can’t you believe it? Just like the people of Macondo must have known at least a few of the people who were killed if the number was so high. That part really freaked me out.
I think the end of the Buendia clan was foreshadowed a lot in the third part. One example that really stuck out was “Aureliano Segundo returned home with his trunks, convinced that not only Ursula but all the inhabitants of Macondo were waiting for [the rain] to clear in order to die.”(322) Pretty much they did. Once the rain cleared, it seemed like the book was all downhill from there.
I don’t feel like going into depth as to why, but I felt bad for Gaston. Hooray for pointless sentences!
THE ENDING WAS SO COOOOOOOOL! (Sorry, I haven’t slept in awhile.) When I was reading the book I was wondering why they kept sticking with the same names that brought them such a bad fate, but it turns out that they pretty much couldn’t help it because it was already mapped out for them and they had no idea. So the gypsies coming was part of all that, and so was the rain, and nothing could be avoided. Was it because human nature is always going to be the same? Or was Melquiades just so smart and all knowing from his long life and travels? Either way, I really loved the way this book was summed up, all neat and such. Although I guess it wasn’t really that neat. I’m still wondering about the wars and about how Melquiades knew, and such. But I guess that’s what makes it a good book. Anyway, Night!
As more and more people died, the title became that much clearer. Solitude was becoming more and more realistic in this society.
I also completely agree with steph113 about Ursula. While reading this, i made the connection with the bible as well. She was the only one who stayed true to herself and did what she felt was right. She didn't give in to the temptation that led everyone else to their downfall. If she had given as as adam and eve did, she would have probably had the same downfall.
Finishing this novel really made me think about my last blog. When Colonel Aureliano Buendía died everyone kind of just forgot his heroic deeds he did. It is related back to the theme of time. Everything was forgotten, and the past actually became the past.
Overall, i really enjoyed reading this novel. It teaches a lesson that following your heart and doing what you believe in is the overall key to success.
I think I might have to steal Babaloo’s first sentence and say: “the ending is tragic” but not at all unforeseen. This novel has been filled with so much foreshadowing that the bit of dramatic irony at the end where Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula have no idea what their child will be like while the reader does comes as no surprise. The number of illegitimate births in this novel is astounding. What I noticed thinking back about the entire novel is that Pilar Ternera is such an intricate part of the family tree. Looking at the first page, one can see that 10 out of the 14 Buendias in Macondo (that is excluding Colonel Aureliano Buendia’s 17 illegitimate children) are decendants from Pilar Ternera and when she reappears at the end of the novel and embraces Aureliano and his heart-ache, I feel that she is finally aiding the Buendia family that she had been such a large part of the entire time.
I found it interesting that paul_in_a_nutshell commented on the irony that exists between Ursula and her fear of incest. Ursula kept the family away from incest during her long lifetime but was unable to beyond her death. As has been mentioned several times before in this blog, the pig tail represents the punishment for giving into one’s temptations.
However, what I did not pick up on in this novel are the parallels between it and Genesis, an observation that Steph113 pointed out. I completely agree with Steph113’s claim that a similarity exists and would like to develop it further. Sin in Macondo I believe, as I stated in my last blog, originated with the government beginning to impose their ways which led to the first verbal disagreement in the society. Later, governments brought the first physical disagreements in Macondo as well, to the point where over 3000 men, women and children were massacred and their bodies carried to the ocean in 200 railway carts to be dumped in the ocean. However, in Genesis, it is the Snake that tempts Eve to disobey God. As a result she and Adam are imposed the cruelty of mortality. This I where I fail to connect my previous claim that government brought on the downfall of Macondo and the Biblical reference. If anyone could help make that connection- if there is any connection at all to be made that is –I would greatly appreciate it.
To respond to Mary’s initial question, no, I did not make a photocopy as advised but I suppose overtime I just got familiar with the names… though at times with great difficulty since new Arcadios and Aurelianos were being added left and right. I liked how you brought up Melquiades' parchment. I found it so strange that Melquiades was able to predict and write down the family’s history as if he were the author (connection?) of the novel itself that wrote it. Fine, maybe not as strange as him coming back from the dead… Anyway, to talk a little bit more about that, I would like to point out that Aureliano “skips” parts of the writing to see his own future and does not read a substantial amount of the text. Does this mean that this part of the Buendia’s lives did not happen since they were not read by Aureliano? Also, I found it quite interesting and a bit pathetic that Auerliano skips ahead to see his future and reads his own death… not to mention that this is after his lover bled to death and he had neglected his son and killed him. Not a good day in the life of a Buendia.
One final analysis I will leave everyone with: the entire downfall of the Buendia line is due to Fernanda (wife of Aureliano Segundo). I know this is a bold claim, but imagine if Fernanda had told Auerlian (Meme’s son) that he had Buendia blood in him. Towards the very end of the novel, Auerliano worries during Amaranta Ursula’s pregnancy that the two are related and goes to great lengths to find out whether they are or not but finds no records of himself. He worries himself sick thinking that Amaranta Ursula is his wife. The question I purpose is would Auerliano and Amaranta Ursula have become lovers had they known they were related (a secret Fernanda kept due to the shame she felt over Auerliano)?
417 pages and later and I must say, what a ride… I will not lie, I enjoyed it as much as my brother and friends told me I would.
Well it think ill start with the ending i mean when the child died it was like the complete ending of this family it was the straw that broke the camels back it was what brought the complete and utter ending to the Buenida Family tree all those years of depression and suffering and even solitude were for nothing because in the end they never got to overcome it they all eventually lost the fight.
There is even more incest when Aureliano, Meme's son, get together with his aunt, Amaranta Ursula. I asked the same question as Cynthia, why does noone else remember the incident of the 3,000 banana factory workers? Still at the end of the book, I wonder how Jose Arcadio Buendia was tied up under the tree for so many years. I agree with Dario of how there are so many illegitimate births in the story. Like I mentioned before, this family focuses a lot on sexual temptations that eventually destroy that family. After Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano give birth to their child, Amaranta Ursula bleeds to death, and their child has a pig’s tail. I agree with everyone that says that the pig’s tail represents the irony of Ursula’s mother’s fear of incest. When Ursula told her mother that she was to marry her cousin, her mother gave her special underwear so they would not be able to have a child. Also, it was, like Paul said, the weakness of succumbing to sexual incestuous temptations. Each member of the family that had sexual relations with one another lead to the tragic ending of the Buendia family.
Okay...so wow, this was honestly a journey--there were so many generations, so many events, so much going on in general. I really found this book to be like nothing I had read before. I never got bored--there were so many lives discussed that if one person’s story didn’t interest you, the next second that would all change, however it would switch back the next second, since there were very similar characters and situations. We met so many different characters, so many different personalities. It was a beautiful piece of work.
Moving on, discussing the actual text....On page 399, when Pilar Ternera's death was mentioned, I just felt bad for her...because when he wrote about "cheap whore jewelry" being in her tomb, I just felt that she was being disrespected pretty badly. The fact that she’s dead and that she is spoken down about is just sad.
Moving on to page 407, with Amaranta Ursula and her relationship with Aureliano--when she writes to her husband, Gaston, about how she loves him, but loves Aureliano a bit more. Once she receives a reply showing that he wishes them happiness, she is taken aback. However once he writes back asking for the velocipede, she feels unimportant--signaling at the fact that she wants him to want her. She is like a child with a toy--they ignore a toy, but once someone else takes it, they want to play with it.
Commenting on the whole he "had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant" (415). It stands behind the fact that every generation of the Buendia family experienced very similar events of misfortune--thus it could all be represented by a single description.
The last page, 417, was a great way to tie the title and the context of the book together. The whole Buendia family was destined to live in one hundred years of solitude--and it would end from there. They were condemned to suffering and there was nothing that they could do to prevent it.
Weather is an important element in One Hundred Years Of Solitude. More specifically rain. Like nessa said about the rain on pages 308-309, about the rain cleansing the town after the massacre. The rain not only cleansed the town of the massacre and the Banana Company but it also cleansed the town of old memories, including ones of the Buendia's. It had been mentioned early on in the book that, "it was also Jose Arcadio Buendia who decided during those years that they should plant almond trees instead of acacias on the streets, and who discovered, without ever revealing it, a way to make them live forever. Many years later, when Macondo was a field of wooden houses with zinc roofs, the broken and dusty almond trees still stood on the oldest streeets, although no one knew who had planted them" (39).
As the story dwindles down, so does the Buendia family. While the element of incest is always around the family, it finally comes down to Aureliano (II) and Amaranta Ursula. Also, as seen in the title, the element of solitude surrounds the family too, bringing Aureliano (II) and Amaranta Ursula together. Their son, also Aureliano, has a pig's tail , which, as past posters have said, represents "giving into temptation".
Marquez makes Biblical references, such as the massacre of the striking banana plantation workers, the immense rain, and whirlwind, and finally the destruction of Macondo, is a representation of the apocalypse.
Overall, the most interesting novel of the 3, probably because of the details and complexity. Also, because it's more outrageous than the other fictional novels. I tried to use the family tree, but after a while I gave up.
So... I'm not going to lie, this was a pretty long book, especially after doing all of this work!
I don't remember someone else mentioning this but, as we know the entire history of the town is circled around the Buendia family. Another thing to notice was how whatever happened to the family happened to the town. Such as when insomnia hit the family, it hit the town. So as the family members fell pray to solitude, I guess the town did as well, leading it to its own downfall.
I found it interesting that the author makes a connection to our society, and today's media. No one believed Jose Arcadio Segundo's experience, because it had to do with a sort of brainwashing. Through this occurrence, Marquez sends a message about how easy it is for the media and the government to cover up the truth from the public. For example, "The search for and extermination of the hoodlums, murderers, arsonists, and rebels of Decree No. 4 was still going on, but the military denied it even to the relatives of the victims who crowded the commandants' offices in search of news. 'You must have been dreaming,' the officers insisted. 'Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing ever will happen. This is a happy town.' In that way they were finally able to wipe out the union leaders."(333)It's a disturbing idea, but not far from what some people believe happens today. I mean who knows about the refugee camps in South Africa? These kind of things don't make it far in our headlines because they are quieted down before they reach us.
Also, I was just reading through the Its Greek to Me chapter of our how to read like a professor and it got me thinking about the Greek Gods and how Colonel Aureliano Buendia resembles both Zeus and Ares. Ares was the god of war, vengeance and anger, and Zeus was a ruler or leader, who had many how do call it, "relationships" with many different women. These are the only Greek gods that i really know about so I'm pretty certain that the other characters share similar characteristics to the Greek Gods.
I would like to hear what your take on the reoccurring ice memory is since it comes back to us so often.
I feel like the ending was a little tragic, but I was satisfied with it. I do have to say though probably my favorite part of this book was the author's language and style. If I was not appealed to his writing I probably would have stopped before page 100. Thanks!!
Something interesting that I began to notice in the third part of the book is the plagues which remind me of the Bible's plagues. There has been insomnia (in the Bible the eldest son of the house doesn't wake up), forgetfulness, rain of yellow flowers, and now rain. It's practically a sign foreshadowing their end.
I remember at the beginning of the book, most of us thought that Melquiades caused the Buendia's downfall. But it is incredibly ironic to see now that his prophecy for Macondo and the Buendia family is exactly true. It is almost as if we were reading the prophecy all along.
This site will be the summer resource for students in Mr. Gallagher and Ms. Clapp's AP Literature courses. You'll come here to discuss summer reading, college searches and applications, and literary topics in general.
26 comments:
On page 301,when the disputes between the union workers and lawyers of the "banana company" were being under deliberation, the whole context of these events would fall under the category of a political allegory. The banana factory would be mentioned at this point of the book and most of all this company would portray as another party that seeks to consume the land of Macondo of lifeblood and resources.The banana factory would mirror an authoritarian government government that is ruled by a face that can change, when they speak of Mr.Brown, apparent attempt to travel in disguise on pg.301 "Later on, Mr.Brown was surprised traveling incognito in a third class coach and they made him sign another copy of the demands...the following day he appeared before the judges with his hair dyed black and speaking flawless Spanish" (301)This whole set up of how they describe the building as "A gated city with the towering banana company" (341)This description of the edifice would give its' purpose in the novel as a ominous meaning.
Next I would like to talk of the meaning of the pigs' tail in the story. Throughout the novel, animal imagery in childbirth becomes the growing theme in the novel due to the beginning of the novel on pg.20
when the narrator describes how the family members abjects the breeding between the two characters:" They were afraid that those two healthy products of two race that interbred over the centuries would suffer the shame of breeding iguanas"(20)The passage can also illustrate racial tensions between these races and also how this "myth" came to creation.The story also reveals that Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia were cousins, through the marriage of Ursula's aunt to Jose Arcadio Buendia's uncle. And throughout the whole story several incidents where there characters have fallen into acts of incest towards one another and the quote that foretold of how if inbreeding within the family continue,one could suffer the damage of having animal/human hybrids. Most notable scenes of incests were The "Rebeca/Jose Arcadio"and the "Aureliano/Amaranta Ursula"flings. the author, Garcia Marquez wanted to give the characters a freedom to let go of their inhibitions and succumb into these acts only to convey the message of how ones temptations can ultimately have others suffer the consequences especially "animal conception".
In the third part of the novel you see what the beginning of the book foreshdowed. The destruction of the peaceful Macondo. It all began when Jose Arcadio Bunedia decided to introduce the city to new technology that the gypsies had showed him. Throughout the novel Maconda transforms from this little innocent city to this war raging and technology ridden little monster. No has the values that Maconda had somewhat thrived on, like loyalty or truth. Everyhting was about decieving and beating out the person sitting next to you. Aureliano Segundo was an example he was using Petra Cotes so that their animals would be fertile during the rain. One time when she was tired of making fertile animals and wanted to sleep Aureliano told her that "These aren't times for things like that" (322). There was no emotinal connection just a pure selfish driven motive. That is somewhat what our world is like today. We started of hundreds of years ago so is simple and then little by little we to have become a world of deceit and lies.
However throughout the novel Ursula has tried to stay true to what she knew. Even in her state of delereium she still had her bearing when she told Aureliano Segundo (who was trying to take advantage of her in her state) "When the owner appears.. god will illuminate him so he can find it" (342). Ursual lived to be between 115 and 122 years old. She was the symbol of morals in this novel. In the society that we live in today those tend to get lost. As did many morals of the Buendia family.Many of the family members died premature deaths becasue they lost sight of what was right and wrong. Ursula showed that staying with your morals and being true to your self would reward you in the end.
I agree with the above comment of the characterization of Ursula. She was the only one who did not fall for the inventions of the gypsies or the ways in which the rest of her family sinned. Every person that was a part of the Buendia family sinned in one way and did not live as long as Ursula did.
When Macondo first started, there was no deaths because it was simple and remained pure. By the end of the book, many people died from war, murder, sickness or age which were factors that no one used to worry about. I compared this to the Bible - the part where Adam and Eve was promised eternal life as long as they did not sin, and once they did, the gift of eternal life was taken away. Once the people of Macondo started to sin their eternal life was taken away too.
I completely agree 100% with bond_smoka's analysis of the pig tail but would like to add on the irony of Ursula's fear of incest. Ursula seems to fear to be spawned from her attempt to keep the family in one piece. She has been shown earlier in the book to keep a close watch on her grandchildren as well as pick at their flaws further emphasizing her fear of the consequences of incest. Yet it is ironic in the way that while Ursula does try to bind the family together yet is scared of incest. The pig tail symbolizes a mark or a burden received by giving into one's temptations. Of course the pig tail is exemplified on Aureliano the third who was the illegitimate child Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula. The mother died after giving birth and Aureliano, the father so ashamed of Aureliano (III) neglected him and Aureliano (III) was soon dead shortly after birth. Lovely image, no? But it does get the point across.
I think the ending is tragic. Aureliano and Armanta Ursula they conceived a child and everything that Ursula had ever said to the family because the incest and its consequents came true. The ending finally bore the complete downfall of the entire family. Armanata Ursula's death and the final death of another Buendia, the child. After so much regret and pain this family suffered nothing had lasted in it but death and sadness that come from it. I think the rain and destruction of the Macando ultimately also lead to their downfall, the rain symbolized the end and rebirth of something. The end of the Buendia and the rebirth of something new.
Before I start, I just want to ask whether everyone else referred to the family tree of the Buendia family as much I did while reading. The repetition of names and events were so confusing, I had to constantly refer to that page in order to keep everything in order and straight.
The ending of the book was amazing. It definitely tied up the whole entire text perfectly. In the end, Marquez creates such a contrast with the beginning. Macondo was once filled with proud and opened people, who left the doors to their houses wide open. In the end, the town was described as "dead," "desolate," "dusty," etc. The doors and the windows to the Buendia's house was nailed shut, and the people became more withdrawn from their neighbors. For example, when the gypsies first came to Macondo, they were impressed with the people. At the end, they felt as if the town had fallen to death and dust.
The beginning of the book was mainly about the Buendia family and how they reacted to foreigners who visited Macondo. As the book progressed, the Buendia family, who was basically the root of Macondo, was less talked about: it was more about how Macondo had undergone changes brought on by these foreigners. This basically foreshadows the end of the Buendia family and the end of Macondo as well.
Another symbolic element in this text is Amaranta Ursula's habit of leading her husband around on a leash. This made me realize that the men of the Buendia family had always had a weak spot for women. Women ended up being the deciding factor in everything they wished to do. For example, Colonel Aureliano Buendia fell in love with Remedios, who he gave up many things in order to obtain her hand in marriage. Jose Arcadio with Pilar Ternera, and then the gypsy girl who he ran away from home with. Amaranta with her two men, who died due to her impenetrable heart.
The rain that lasted for years in One Hundred Yars of Solitude washed Macondo of its violence and its negative occurences, making it a symbolic element. It uprooted "every last plant of the banana groves" (315), which Ursula was so against. It did away with the memory of the massacre of the banana workers during the strike. Macondo was left in ruins by this endless rain, meaning that all the new buildings and new technologies were done with.
Also, the repetition of "one hundred years" in the last few sectiond definitely highlighted its importance. It led up to the discovery of Melquiades' parchments and the end of the Buendia family, which lasted for a century.
I pretty much enjoyed this text. Marquez did an excellent job in tying everything up in the end.
I want to begin by saying that this book surprised me. I judged it and then I thought...ughh...an extremely long book, better get it over with...but then again, as I was reading, I found myself at times not being able to put it down. But, mary, i agree with you 100% because as advised, I made a photocopy of the family tree and referred to it oftenly while reading. It was actually helpful. But to get on with the analyses.
I wrote down notes while reading the last third of the book because I knew it was going to be important. I also jotted down the rain as a symbol. I remember reading How To Read Literature Like a Professor and he brought up the many symbols rain could represent. On page 308-309, "...he could find no trace of the massacre. The streets were deserted under the persistent rain and the houses locked up with no trace of life inside." The rain washed away every trace of the bloody massacre at the station and any proof whatsoever that there was any Banana Company at all. Thomas C. Foster in the How To Read...says that rain could symbolize rebirth or rejuvination of some sort. Macondo was born again, into what it used to be. "The survivors of the catastroph, the same ones who had been living in Macondo before it had been struck by the banana company hurricane, were sitting in the middle of the street enjoying their first sunshine...but in their hearts they seemed happy to have recovered the town in which they had been born," (331). The townspeople were glad even though a majority of Macondo was destroyed.
The rain also changed certain characters of the Buendias too. Jose Arcadio's desire for war were thrown away, along with the war itself. Aureliano Segundo became more solemn at home with Fernanda. The rain was all he needed for a reality check. He lost all the weight that he had put on and he began to resemble his twin brother Jose Arcadio Segundo.
I found it interesting how Ursula died on Good Friday (page 342). In the Bible, Jesus died on Good Friday, too. He died on that day for our sins to save the world from oblivion in response to the wrath of God. As steph113 says, Urula was the only one who stayed true to her morals and didn't fall into the disorder that befell Macondo. Yes, I agree with her reference to the fall of Adam and Eve, but I just find it interesting how she died on Good Friday, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross...
The pigs tail in the novel is one of the deformities that a couple gets when they are involved with incestry, and is most feared when giving birth to a child. I was wondering how the Buendias were going to get by and get lucky, with normal looking children and not one sign of physical deformity. But, I didn't expect any less though for Amaranta Urula and Aureliano's baby to not be marked, plus it was towards the end of the book. The pigs tail is a symbol of incestry, of which we already know. I agree with Paul_In_A_Nutshell about it being a sign of yielding to temptation. The child dies a horrible death, just as Melquiadez predicted in his parchment work. I had a feeling that the red ants would have some signicant role in the novel because of its constant repetion. Urusula would try to get rid of them but they kept coming back. It was like a foreshadowing for me.
I want to bring up one last point. The cobwebs and dust that kept reappearing in the Melquiadez's room. When one thinks of dust and cobwebs, something that resembles aging comes to mind. She kept cleaning the room, but the dust kept returning. I see it as a way of saying that no matter what happens, no matter what natural disaster, things can't go back to the way they used to be and that time is always moving forward, even if it looks like its moving back, especially in the Buendia household. Catalonian also mentions this too in one of his letters, "...he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart...and that wherever they might be they always remeber that the past was a lie, that memory has no return..." (403). It is true. Yes, the rain that lasted for many years did away with most of Macondo, but it also did away with the memories. No one seemed to remeber the Buendias anymore.
I finished the book last night, and wow, was I a little taken aback by the ending. I wasn't expecting a happy ending, from how the family consisted of less and less people and more and more solitude, but I didn't predict the complete destruction of the Buendia line.
In addition to the symbols mentioned earlier that were scattered through out the novel, I noticed also the recurrence of the color yellow. I thought the color serves as a warning to the family, such as the case with Meme and the yellow butterflies. Does anyone else have any insights?
WOW!!! I finally have access to a computer. I finished ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE a few days ago and have been trying to remember everything I had to say so that i could type it now.
Well to start off I absolutley loved the book. Yes, it was long and at times confusing with all the characters' names, but I have to admit that I was glued to the novel. Marquez has this way of being so descriptive that the reader can easily imagine everything he or she is reading. Throughout the novel I often forgot that it was fiction and I becaame so engrossed in the lives of the characters.
Moving on to the topic of the banana company that otehrs talked about already: First off, I thought it was just another example of how outside forces slowly destroyed the town of Macondo. The banana company reminded me of the Dutch men who went into Africa during the age of Imperialism and made the natives pick rubber. The men would be overworked and underpayed and very often beaten for not meeting the day's quota. In the case of the novel, the situation was not so severe, but I jsut tied the two things together (because I'm a history geek). Another point I wanted to mention about that part of the book was when the massacre occured. How could it be that no one recalled the event? Only the one boy who was on Jose Arcadio Segundo's shoulders and Jose Arcadio Segundo himself rememeber that the guns went off and all the workers and their families were killed. From pages 302- 310, Marquez writes about the event and Jose Arcadio Segundo waking up in a train-car filled with the bodies of the 3000 dead people. Pages 306-307 remind me of stories of the Holocaust in which Jewish families were packed into train-cars and transported to camps or in the movie Hotel Rwanda where the dead bodies were being tossed into massive graves. How is it that the government got the people of Macondo to believe that the massacre never happened???
I also wanted to add on to what Mary already mentioned about how much the story changed from the beginning to the end. In the beginning Macondo was so alive with the people building thier new homes and starting new lives. I would easily ;picture the colorful houses and all the green around the town. By the end the town was so depressing and i picture it being all browna and dried out. In the beginning the Buendia family was growing with the town and by the end its lineage died just as life in the town was dying as well.
I wanted to bring attention to a passage in which Aureliano went crying and seeking help to Pilar Ternera because he was in love with Amaranta Ursula. Pilar asked the girl's name and "When Aureliano told her, Pilar Ternera let out a deep laugh, the old expansive laugh that ended up as a cooing of doves. There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendia that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axel," (396). In this passage Marquez does an excellent job of describing the legacy of the Buendia family and how their fates keep repeating. The image of the axel wearing out is an allusion as to the end of the Buendia family.
One final thing I wanted to comment on was the end of the novel. By the very end Melquiades' papers were revealed and they said that, "The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants," (413). I found it sort of magical how Melquides pretty much new everything all along. He new the fate of the Buendia family and it was interesting how Jose Arcadio Buendia died at the tree and how Aureliano died being eaten by ants. It made me think about fate and destiny and about how much in life we can control and how much is already layed out for us. As much as the characters tried to do their own thing and follow different paths, they all had the Buendia fate which made them all alike.
Oh yes, one last thing (I promise). What does Marquez mean by, "races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth," (417)? Its such a poetic way of ending the novel (with the title in it) but what exactly is meant by it?
The third section of One Hundred Years of Solitude is completely different from the beginning of the book, due to the fact that many characters have died and the village of Macondo has entirely fallen apart.
The changes that Macondo underwent were to be expected seeing as how the Buendía family resided there for over a century, however, I never imaged the village to undergo such catastrophic changes as it had. Although war, death, and violence all played huge factors in the reasons as to why the village changed drastically, as Nessa stated rain also brought about a change to Macondo. I agree with her because after the village underwent the rain storm that lasted over four years, although many people were found dead and major companies such as the banana company were destroyed, the original aspects of the village still remained. “The survivors of the catastrophe, the same ones who had been living in Macondo before it had been struck by the banana hurricane…” (331) appeared to be better off, despite their losses. People such as José Arcadio, opened his home to the children of the town so they could have an area to play in.
A major portion of the third section was devoted to Amaranta Úrsula and her relationships with Gaston and Aureliano. In her relationship with Gaston, she really took control of their marriage and I agree with Mary that the women of Macondo made decisions in their relationships that always appeared to result in their favor. With Gaston, it was clear that he wanted to please her and even though he “had more than enough money to live anywhere in the world” (379) he chose to put his dreams of creating an airmail service on hold to live with Amaranta Úrsula in Macondo for over two years. However, the idea of women taking the lead role in their relationships altered a bit when Amaranta Úrsula began a relationship with Aureliano. They seemed to be able to communicate better with one another, and they appeared to have a better understanding of each other’s desires. A turning point in their relationship occurred when they were faced with the task of naming their child and Amaranta Úrsula, for many years, wanted to name her son Rodrigo, however, Aureliano made the decision that their son would be named after him. I wonder why Amaranta Úrsula was more willing to compromise with Aureliano than she was with her husband, Gaston.
I also agree with Paul In A Nutshell about how Aureliano’s pig tail represented his parents’ weakness of succumbing to the temptations of having a relationship with one another, even though they were related. However, I wonder why Márquez decided to denote a child of incest with a pig’s tail, but pigs are know to be animals that are unkept and they get into a lot of mess. In my opinion, Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano’s actions reflect that of a pig in a way because Amaranta Úrsula was unkept in not staying faithful to her husband and they both created a mess by having relations even though they knew the risk of possibly having a child that would be born with a pig’s tail.
The final pages of the book brought many ideas to a close, one of which, I thought included the idea that people only have one life to live, so they should take advantage of different things. The closing line of the book stated “… races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth” (417) and I felt that this statement was very powerful and significant to the text because many of the main characters allowed themselves to fall into a state of solitude. For instance, José Arcadio Buendía, consumed all of his time with various inventions, Amaranta distanced herself from men she strongly loved and Fernanda del Carpio distracted herself from her husband, Aureliano Segundo’s adultery. The Buendía family’s cycle of living in solitude not only kept them from seizing the many different opportunities in life, this cycle followed them from one generation to the next and ultimately led them all to their downfall. I feel that Márquez wanted to establish the idea that by consuming one’s life with a single idea, leads to a life of solitude and in order to truly live life to its entirety, a person must allow himself to be opened to exploring all of the opportunities one is confronted with in their lifetime.
Hi all!
First, I want to address Ashley8's question of why Aureliano was able to get his way with the naming of their child (the last Aureliano, with the tail of a pig- SO MANY AURELIANOS!) despite the fact that Amaranta Ursula was dead set on naming him Rodrigo. I don't think that this should be interpreted as a question of which gender was stronger (the idea of gender equality intrigued me with the insights afforded by this topic on this blog). Keep in mind too, that the characters "had no time to think about" (412) the entire history of Ursula's fears of breeding mutants in the family, since Amaranta Ursula started bleeding profusely (consequence of pregnancy)and within a day, she died. Obviously, the naming of the child would be unimportant while Amaranta Ursula's life was in danger. Indeed, when she died, Aureliano abandoned the child to his grief. I think the author's purpose in maming the child Aureliano instead of Rodrigo is to connect the child's fate to that of the Buendia family. Rodrigo would have been a totally new, separate name. The naming of the family members is significant with the connection of each person with the idea of "solitude." Some qualities are even inherited with names: Aurelianos are all similar to the original Aureliano, and the "original" Amaranta, who has sexual contact with her nephew, is similar to Amaranta Ursula, her namesake who does the same thing. By attaching the child with the name Aureliano, Marquez binds him to the Buendia family. His fate is fulfilled in accordance with Melquiades's predictions.
I loved the novel for its storyteling style. Like Cynthia, I forgot that it was fiction. Some elements are obviously fictional. Four year rainstorm? (Even Noah got 40 days, let alone 1460 days)Levitation? People back from the dead? I think that this novel was written in a "mythical" style. Macondo, which booms up and then becomes deserted again, and the entire Buendia family (who are blessed with extraordinary longevity- if the numbers could be believed) seem more mythical than factual. Perhaps this was intended. It's a credit to the author that his narrative voice is sure and certain, a quality that enhances the story's mythical nature rather than detracting from it. (Myths are, after all, sometimes told as fact)
In the last part of the novel, Ursula’s long time fear of having a child in the family bearing the stamp of incest, a pig’s tail came true. Marquez’s use of irony again is evident in that after the many generations of the Buendia family that come about due to incest, it is the last offspring that bears the notorious pig’s tail. The pig’s tail can be called a motif as it is a constant fear of Ursula’s. It reemerges with every act of incest. What is ironic is that the pig’s tail seems to be a punishment better then that of the curse of solitude that all the Buendias face. In a literal sense, the pig’s tail is the symbol of consequence for incest but it may also be a symbol of the end to the century long suffering of an entire family. The pig’s tail is the sign of the end to not only the years of solitude but also the end to the Buendia family line. The fear and expectation of Ursula is confirmed but in some ways it is a relief that the last Buendia will not suffer from unrelenting solitude. Going on bond_smoka’s comment on the recurring animal imagery in the novel, I find that Marquez contrasts and combines human characteristics with animal ones to produce a primitive feeling in the city of Macondo and in its inhabitants. The disobeying of all rules of acceptable behavior by societal standards reinforces this idea of primitiveness that Marquez conveys. They have no boundaries as to whom they love.
There also exists a surreal element to the novel as Stevie wonder ii and c-rod has pointed out. This sense of unreality contributes to the unexplainable events that occur in the novel such as Remedios the Beauty’s elevation into the heavens. Melquides and the gypsies as well add to the sense of surrealism. I find the parchment of Melquides and his influence in Macondo to be critical. Once deciphered, Aureliano II discovers that it is Melquides who writes the life story for each member of the Buendia family. Melquides was the person who introduces Macondo to the new inventions and discoveries and it is also he who has sparked the interest of the Buendia men in their thirst for knowledge. Melquides becomes the true writer of the novel as he decides the fates of all of its characters. By the end of the novel, I, like ashley8, believe that Marquez wants to show the consequences of solitude, of its suffocating isolation that disallows one to live life to the fullest. At times, solitude may seem to be a blessing of peace such as in the case of Ursula, but in many cases, solitude not “[having] a second opportunity on earth” (417) at life.
The writing style of Márquez is new to me. It contains flashbacks from different characters and forms a complete story. Yet those memories from the past are extremely detailed. I like this technique since it is unique.
I think that one of the main ideas of the book is that history repeats itself over and over again. Many Buendía members continue to fall in love with their relatives, such as Aureliano José and Aureliano (by Mauricio Babilonia), or live in the solitude, like Colonel Aureliano and Rebeca. Even though there are some attempts to stop this pattern, their efforts are failure. They are unable to change the characteristics of the Buendía family. In order to reinforce this idea, the author uses the same name (Aureliano and Arcadio) on different characters to show that these family members repeat the cycles of their former selves. But, personally, I dislike the author’s attempt because it is quite confusing to keep track of whom he is talking about. In real life, history repeats itself too. For instance, Napoleon and Hitler both attacked Russia when they controlled most of the Europe. Yet both of them lost in the war due to the winter in Russia. As a result for both rulers, they began to lose their power.
I agree with Paul about the idea of pig’s tail. Many family members of Buendía inhibit themselves from the act of incest. Yet the story of pig’s tail still appears at the end because Amaranta Úrsula and Aureliano (by Mauricio Babilonia) do not know their aunt/nephew relationship. Even though the Buendía family tries its best to avoid the tragedy, it still happens to this race, which makes the story to become ironic.
OK. Reaching the end and I don't ever want it to...
Quick observations:
The pig's tail will eventually be the Buendias' downfall. This is Ursula's worst fear and always has been, and of course for the author, irony is always the best way to go. The pig's tail = end of the Buendias.
Rain, rain, go away. This is exactly what "How To Read Literature like A Professor" was talking about. Rain has a "cleansing effect" that I believed in the beginning would purify the town back to it's original state.
irony!
The town becomes desolate and deserted in the end instead of the utopia it once was. It also seems like the Buendias are the only people left who called Macondo home. I want to disagree with babaloo because although I want to believe it is a rebirth, It seems as if though the whole world has finally crumbled away along with Macondo. I think it is the final end.
In an answer to c-rod's question, I think that by "A Hundred Years of Solitude" the author refers to how the Buendias kept to themselves in the end. Every Buendia dies isolated, and alone. They do marry outside of the family, but always return into themselves...(if that makes any sense) The family fell apart within. The incestuous relationships led to the death of the only Buendias remaining, thus wiping them off the face of the earth, never to return again.
I wonder what Marquez's political surroundings are, because this story held highly communist ideals and sympathized greatly with revolutionaries. To be honest I was greatly confused by the whole "war", but I believe that what really mattered anyway was the fact that the liberals lost every time.
I also have noticed that the banana company was "westernization" of the town, since "Mr. Brown" was the catalyst of the tragedy. This displays extreme negativity towards the westernization of cultures.
I have a few more pages to go, but Marquez is officially one of my favorite writers and I am definitely looking into reading many more of his work.
peace, love, and understanding!
As to everyone’s confusion over the names, I took the advice of a former AP student and made a copy of the family tree, and used that as a bookmark. Even with that however, I often found myself confused, referring to each character by a trait; in the earlier stages of the book I often referred Aureliano Buendia as “the kid who could, like, see the future kinda?”
The ending of the story reminded me of José Arcadio Buendía’s vision of Macondo’s future: first a town with mirror houses, which later transformed into the dream of houses made of blocks of ice. Whereas before, the mirror houses would simply reflect the outer world, copying its appearance, the descent into an ice city was realized in an odd way, by melting away, just like the Buendía family.
As to the color yellow, like Taylor asked about before, I personally thought it didn’t have any real symbolic meaning that was a widely known fact. I thought that Marquez used it as a color that represented change, and in turn, destruction in his story. Whether it was the faded yellow parchments that Melaquides wrote, telling of Macondo’s destruction, the yellow butterflies that followed Mauricio Babilonia, the yellow train that brought about society and its destructive properties to Macondo, or the yellow flowers that rained when José Arcadio Buendía passed away, the color yellow is often seen in the tale. It simply represents a kind of force, appearing in the crucial events, and tying them together in some way.
The book as a whole was enjoyable, if not confusing most of the times, which definitely slowed me down a bit. While I understand the symbolism and meaning behind the repeated names, would it have killed him to put a Jr. or Such-and-such the Fourth?
Seemingly many of the more prominent ideas were already discussed including the tidy way Marquez concludes his book by tying up loose ends. On that note, I found it very ironic that the twin brothers Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo were mixed up in burial. Considering the opposing characteristics of the individuals (in relation to their names), one can assume that they were in fact switched as boys and it seems befitting that they were reswitched by the conclusion, thus reconnecting with their true identities. Their very deaths add to the mystical aura that was prevalent throughout the book as they both died at the same time, bound by the deep-rooted union of twins.
To continue Nessa's observations about the red ants, they seemed to symbolize the beginnings of degeneration not simply within the Buendia household but in Macondo in general. Once Ursula passed, and simultaneously her will of iron, all succumbed to the rampant deterioration that culminated to 4 year rainstorm.
"'What did you expect,' he murmured. 'Time passes.'
'That's how it goes,' Ursula said, 'but not so much.'
When she said it she realized that she was giving the same reply that Colonel Aureliano Buendia had given in his death cell, and once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle," (335). This passage is defining of the book as the book's development is hinged to the fact that time is circular and continuously repeats. This sort of cyclical behavior is prevalent even within specific characters as Aureliano made the goldfish to simply melt them down, to use the gold to make more goldfish, or how Amaranta Ursula made messes within their home so she could then clean and so on. All the characters and events were connected through time which truly produced a circle in Marquez's vision.
-Tzivia (hurrah.. done!)
Wow, was I surprised at the ending. That of course is most fresh in my mind, but Meme’s son also came home in the third part. (At least in the way I divided the book he did.) Poor thing, hidden in a closet. That definitely taps into Fernanda’s psychological issues. People were saying they had trouble remembering the book was fiction at times. I felt the same way, but when I read about Meme’s Aureliano being locked in the closet, and at one point escaping, naked and dirty, I was snapped back to remembering it was fictional. Kids locked in closets don’t usually survive since they don’t get the touch and interaction required, but anyway, that is a WHOLE different subject. Sorry, tangent.
Another part of the book that totally freaked me out is when there was a whole shooting at the station. The shooting itself didn’t frighten me, but what happened after the fact did. Jose Arcadio Segundo went to a woman’s home to escape, having just awoken in a sea of bodies. He was talking to her, and said “’There must have been three thousand of them,’ he murmured. ‘What?’ ‘The dead,’ he clarified. ‘It must have been all the people who were at the station.’… ‘There haven’t been any dead here,’ she said. ‘Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has happened in Macondo.’”(308) To deceive people about a death of that high a number is amazing. There had to have been tons of people who were missing after that, yet people still didn’t believe it. Was JAS hallucinating, or going insane, or what? I don’t think he was though, because when he was holding the little boy to see before the shooting, it was said that “Many years later that child would still tell, in spite of people thinking that he was a crazy old man, how Jose Arcadio Segundo had lifted him over his head and hauled him, almost in the air, as if floating on the terror of the crowd, toward a nearby street.”(305) So it must have happened. It reminds me of the people who still deny the Holocaust ever happening. It’s like… people wrote journals on it, how can’t you believe it? Just like the people of Macondo must have known at least a few of the people who were killed if the number was so high. That part really freaked me out.
I think the end of the Buendia clan was foreshadowed a lot in the third part. One example that really stuck out was “Aureliano Segundo returned home with his trunks, convinced that not only Ursula but all the inhabitants of Macondo were waiting for [the rain] to clear in order to die.”(322) Pretty much they did. Once the rain cleared, it seemed like the book was all downhill from there.
I don’t feel like going into depth as to why, but I felt bad for Gaston. Hooray for pointless sentences!
THE ENDING WAS SO COOOOOOOOL! (Sorry, I haven’t slept in awhile.) When I was reading the book I was wondering why they kept sticking with the same names that brought them such a bad fate, but it turns out that they pretty much couldn’t help it because it was already mapped out for them and they had no idea. So the gypsies coming was part of all that, and so was the rain, and nothing could be avoided. Was it because human nature is always going to be the same? Or was Melquiades just so smart and all knowing from his long life and travels? Either way, I really loved the way this book was summed up, all neat and such. Although I guess it wasn’t really that neat. I’m still wondering about the wars and about how Melquiades knew, and such. But I guess that’s what makes it a good book. Anyway, Night!
As more and more people died, the title became that much clearer. Solitude was becoming more and more realistic in this society.
I also completely agree with steph113 about Ursula. While reading this, i made the connection with the bible as well. She was the only one who stayed true to herself and did what she felt was right. She didn't give in to the temptation that led everyone else to their downfall. If she had given as as adam and eve did, she would have probably had the same downfall.
Finishing this novel really made me think about my last blog. When Colonel Aureliano Buendía died everyone kind of just forgot his heroic deeds he did. It is related back to the theme of time. Everything was forgotten, and the past actually became the past.
Overall, i really enjoyed reading this novel. It teaches a lesson that following your heart and doing what you believe in is the overall key to success.
Once more: hello,
I think I might have to steal Babaloo’s first sentence and say: “the ending is tragic” but not at all unforeseen. This novel has been filled with so much foreshadowing that the bit of dramatic irony at the end where Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula have no idea what their child will be like while the reader does comes as no surprise. The number of illegitimate births in this novel is astounding. What I noticed thinking back about the entire novel is that Pilar Ternera is such an intricate part of the family tree. Looking at the first page, one can see that 10 out of the 14 Buendias in Macondo (that is excluding Colonel Aureliano Buendia’s 17 illegitimate children) are decendants from Pilar Ternera and when she reappears at the end of the novel and embraces Aureliano and his heart-ache, I feel that she is finally aiding the Buendia family that she had been such a large part of the entire time.
I found it interesting that paul_in_a_nutshell commented on the irony that exists between Ursula and her fear of incest. Ursula kept the family away from incest during her long lifetime but was unable to beyond her death. As has been mentioned several times before in this blog, the pig tail represents the punishment for giving into one’s temptations.
However, what I did not pick up on in this novel are the parallels between it and Genesis, an observation that Steph113 pointed out. I completely agree with Steph113’s claim that a similarity exists and would like to develop it further. Sin in Macondo I believe, as I stated in my last blog, originated with the government beginning to impose their ways which led to the first verbal disagreement in the society. Later, governments brought the first physical disagreements in Macondo as well, to the point where over 3000 men, women and children were massacred and their bodies carried to the ocean in 200 railway carts to be dumped in the ocean. However, in Genesis, it is the Snake that tempts Eve to disobey God. As a result she and Adam are imposed the cruelty of mortality. This I where I fail to connect my previous claim that government brought on the downfall of Macondo and the Biblical reference. If anyone could help make that connection- if there is any connection at all to be made that is –I would greatly appreciate it.
To respond to Mary’s initial question, no, I did not make a photocopy as advised but I suppose overtime I just got familiar with the names… though at times with great difficulty since new Arcadios and Aurelianos were being added left and right. I liked how you brought up Melquiades' parchment. I found it so strange that Melquiades was able to predict and write down the family’s history as if he were the author (connection?) of the novel itself that wrote it. Fine, maybe not as strange as him coming back from the dead… Anyway, to talk a little bit more about that, I would like to point out that Aureliano “skips” parts of the writing to see his own future and does not read a substantial amount of the text. Does this mean that this part of the Buendia’s lives did not happen since they were not read by Aureliano? Also, I found it quite interesting and a bit pathetic that Auerliano skips ahead to see his future and reads his own death… not to mention that this is after his lover bled to death and he had neglected his son and killed him. Not a good day in the life of a Buendia.
One final analysis I will leave everyone with: the entire downfall of the Buendia line is due to Fernanda (wife of Aureliano Segundo). I know this is a bold claim, but imagine if Fernanda had told Auerlian (Meme’s son) that he had Buendia blood in him. Towards the very end of the novel, Auerliano worries during Amaranta Ursula’s pregnancy that the two are related and goes to great lengths to find out whether they are or not but finds no records of himself. He worries himself sick thinking that Amaranta Ursula is his wife. The question I purpose is would Auerliano and Amaranta Ursula have become lovers had they known they were related (a secret Fernanda kept due to the shame she felt over Auerliano)?
417 pages and later and I must say, what a ride… I will not lie, I enjoyed it as much as my brother and friends told me I would.
Thank you all,
see you soon :)
Well it think ill start with the ending i mean when the child died it was like the complete ending of this family it was the straw that broke the camels back it was what brought the complete and utter ending to the Buenida Family tree all those years of depression and suffering and even solitude were for nothing because in the end they never got to overcome it they all eventually lost the fight.
There is even more incest when Aureliano, Meme's son, get together with his aunt, Amaranta Ursula.
I asked the same question as Cynthia, why does noone else remember the incident of the 3,000 banana factory workers?
Still at the end of the book, I wonder how Jose Arcadio Buendia was tied up under the tree for so many years.
I agree with Dario of how there are so many illegitimate births in the story. Like I mentioned before, this family focuses a lot on sexual temptations that eventually destroy that family. After Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano give birth to their child, Amaranta Ursula bleeds to death, and their child has a pig’s tail. I agree with everyone that says that the pig’s tail represents the irony of Ursula’s mother’s fear of incest. When Ursula told her mother that she was to marry her cousin, her mother gave her special underwear so they would not be able to have a child. Also, it was, like Paul said, the weakness of succumbing to sexual incestuous temptations. Each member of the family that had sexual relations with one another lead to the tragic ending of the Buendia family.
Hello.
Okay...so wow, this was honestly a journey--there were so many generations, so many events, so much going on in general. I really found this book to be like nothing I had read before. I never got bored--there were so many lives discussed that if one person’s story didn’t interest you, the next second that would all change, however it would switch back the next second, since there were very similar characters and situations. We met so many different characters, so many different personalities. It was a beautiful piece of work.
Moving on, discussing the actual text....On page 399, when Pilar Ternera's death was mentioned, I just felt bad for her...because when he wrote about "cheap whore jewelry" being in her tomb, I just felt that she was being disrespected pretty badly. The fact that she’s dead and that she is spoken down about is just sad.
Moving on to page 407, with Amaranta Ursula and her relationship with Aureliano--when she writes to her husband, Gaston, about how she loves him, but loves Aureliano a bit more. Once she receives a reply showing that he wishes them happiness, she is taken aback. However once he writes back asking for the velocipede, she feels unimportant--signaling at the fact that she wants him to want her. She is like a child with a toy--they ignore a toy, but once someone else takes it, they want to play with it.
Commenting on the whole he "had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant" (415). It stands behind the fact that every generation of the Buendia family experienced very similar events of misfortune--thus it could all be represented by a single description.
The last page, 417, was a great way to tie the title and the context of the book together. The whole Buendia family was destined to live in one hundred years of solitude--and it would end from there. They were condemned to suffering and there was nothing that they could do to prevent it.
All in all, great book.
Weather is an important element in One Hundred Years Of Solitude. More specifically rain. Like nessa said about the rain on pages 308-309, about the rain cleansing the town after the massacre. The rain not only cleansed the town of the massacre and the Banana Company but it also cleansed the town of old memories, including ones of the Buendia's. It had been mentioned early on in the book that, "it was also Jose Arcadio Buendia who decided during those years that they should plant almond trees instead of acacias on the streets, and who discovered, without ever revealing it, a way to make them live forever. Many years later, when Macondo was a field of wooden houses with zinc roofs, the broken and dusty almond trees still stood on the oldest streeets, although no one knew who had planted them" (39).
As the story dwindles down, so does the Buendia family. While the element of incest is always around the family, it finally comes down to Aureliano (II) and Amaranta Ursula. Also, as seen in the title, the element of solitude surrounds the family too, bringing Aureliano (II) and Amaranta Ursula together. Their son, also Aureliano, has a pig's tail , which, as past posters have said, represents "giving into temptation".
Marquez makes Biblical references, such as the massacre of the striking banana plantation workers, the immense rain, and whirlwind, and finally the destruction of Macondo, is a representation of the apocalypse.
Overall, the most interesting novel of the 3, probably because of the details and complexity. Also, because it's more outrageous than the other fictional novels. I tried to use the family tree, but after a while I gave up.
So... I'm not going to lie, this was a pretty long book, especially after doing all of this work!
I don't remember someone else mentioning this but, as we know the entire history of the town is circled around the Buendia family. Another thing to notice was how whatever happened to the family happened to the town. Such as when insomnia hit the family, it hit the town. So as the family members fell pray to solitude, I guess the town did as well, leading it to its own downfall.
I found it interesting that the author makes a connection to our society, and today's media. No one believed Jose Arcadio Segundo's experience, because it had to do with a sort of brainwashing. Through this occurrence, Marquez sends a message about how easy it is for the media and the government to cover up the truth from the public. For example, "The search for and extermination of the hoodlums, murderers, arsonists, and rebels of Decree No. 4 was still going on, but the military denied it even to the relatives of the victims who crowded the commandants' offices in search of news. 'You must have been dreaming,' the officers insisted. 'Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing ever will happen. This is a happy town.' In that way they were finally able to wipe out the union leaders."(333)It's a disturbing idea, but not far from what some people believe happens today. I mean who knows about the refugee camps in South Africa? These kind of things don't make it far in our headlines because they are quieted down before they reach us.
Also, I was just reading through the Its Greek to Me chapter of our how to read like a professor and it got me thinking about the Greek Gods and how Colonel Aureliano Buendia resembles both Zeus and Ares. Ares was the god of war, vengeance and anger, and Zeus was a ruler or leader, who had many how do call it, "relationships" with many different women. These are the only Greek gods that i really know about so I'm pretty certain that the other characters share similar characteristics to the Greek Gods.
I would like to hear what your take on the reoccurring ice memory is since it comes back to us so often.
I feel like the ending was a little tragic, but I was satisfied with it. I do have to say though probably my favorite part of this book was the author's language and style. If I was not appealed to his writing I probably would have stopped before page 100. Thanks!!
Something interesting that I began to notice in the third part of the book is the plagues which remind me of the Bible's plagues. There has been insomnia (in the Bible the eldest son of the house doesn't wake up), forgetfulness, rain of yellow flowers, and now rain. It's practically a sign foreshadowing their end.
I remember at the beginning of the book, most of us thought that Melquiades caused the Buendia's downfall. But it is incredibly ironic to see now that his prophecy for Macondo and the Buendia family is exactly true. It is almost as if we were reading the prophecy all along.
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