{"id":24,"date":"2023-02-27T18:37:33","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T01:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/?p=24"},"modified":"2023-02-27T18:37:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T01:37:33","slug":"week-7-the-enchantment-of-marquezs-vignettes-in-one-hundred-years-of-solitude-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/2023\/02\/27\/week-7-the-enchantment-of-marquezs-vignettes-in-one-hundred-years-of-solitude-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 7: The Enchantment of M\u00e1rquez\u2019s Vignettes in One Hundred Years of Solitude (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Reading <\/span>One Hundred Years of Solitude <\/span><\/i>by Gabriel Garcia M\u00e1rquez, I found myself enchanted by his narrative resembling something not unlike a fairy tale. In the confluence of fantastical elements and on-the-ground actualities, Marquez is able to communicate to the reader their familiar hopes and dreams, as well as experienced anguish. It is in this way it can be viewed as a fairy tale for adults \u2014 or an otherworldly tale whose morals inform our known reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 Time and time again, the narrative grounds the dreamlike events which surround the day-to-day lives of his characters with human struggles including philosophy, spirituality and, at its most basic, human pitfalls. Take one of the characters in the book, the founder of Macondo Jos\u00e9 Arcadio. Through the pursuit of passionate love with his mistress\u2014described as something like an \u201cearthquake\u201d (M\u00e1rquez 37) \u2014Arcadio is left with the result that he is to become a father sooner than anticipated. Such situations are commonplace throughout the book and illustrative of the follies which make us human even among a spectacular world. Not long after, when Arcadio and his eccentric friend Melqu\u00edades<\/span> meet a fellow nomadic gypsy later on, a more abstract struggle is presented in the form of mortality and belonging: \u201cHe really had been through death, but [the Gypsy] had returned because he could not bear the solitude\u201d (M\u00e1rquez 55). Although the circumstances of the man being exiled from his tribe might not be relatable for all, human emotions surrounding loneliness and belonging are ubiquitous.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 Throughout its pages, the narrative refutes the assumption of the reader that it is an escapist fairy tale; in this sense <\/span>One Hundred Years of Solitude <\/span><\/i>is more honest than one, as the story chooses not to shy away from the dark side of humanity. In its rendition of how women are abused in the real world, the character Aureliano crosses paths with a girl who is forced into prostitution by her grandmother. \u201cHe felt an irresistible need to love her and protect her,\u201d Aureliano soon finds; and his overpowering desire for the girl drives him into wishing to \u201cmarry her in order to free her from the despotism of her grandmother\u201d (M\u00e1rquez 58). It is only after reaching this conclusion, and coming back the next day, that he finds the girl has left town and is subject to the same tragic fate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 By the end of reading Part I of <\/span>One Hundred Years of Solitude,<\/span><\/i> I found the tales of M\u00e1rquez as highlighting the author\u2019s belief in universal humanity. In keeping with this idea, my question for the class would be if you found any of the vignettes speak to your own human struggles or experiences, or if they remained more magical than real. <\/span>S<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia M\u00e1rquez, I found myself enchanted by his narrative resembling something not unlike a fairy tale. In the confluence of fantastical elements and on-the-ground actualities, Marquez is able to communicate to the reader their familiar hopes and dreams, as well as experienced anguish. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34],"tags":[37,38,36,39,35],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entries","category-marquez","tag-civilization","tag-family","tag-life","tag-narrative-narration","tag-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/letterstothespanishworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}