100 Years of Solitude – Topics in Hispanic Literature

In the later part of Gabriel García Márquez’s’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, we see the once simple town of Macondo struggle with disruptions brought over by the shiny new train. This comes in the form of modernization and capitalism which begins to take over with the start of industry in the banana plantation and later the towns dependence on it. I wonder if this is supposed to be commentary on colonialism and western industrial technology brought to Latin America. The issues associated with the modernization of Macondo play out throughout the end of the novel which notably is plagued by constant deaths, war, and total collapse. At one point Garcia Marquez draws a pretty vivid comparison to the corpses from the massacred piled up “in the same way in which they transported bunches of bananas”. I think this line is really indicative of the dark fate Macondo experiences during the turmoil and collapse of their major industry after the deluge.

It wasn’t until the end of the book where I finally realized how much of the history of Macondo and the lives of its inhabitants had already been prophesized by Melquíades’ closely following the history described throughout the parchments. It seems like every generation repeated the mistakes of their ancestors (e.g., the Buendia family’s tendency for solitude and involvement in wars and revolutions) seemingly without much progress in terms of new approaches or even much attempt to alter their fates. For these reasons, I believe the fate of Macondo was inevitable and doomed from the outset.

Originally, I thought the intention of novel may have been to provide further commentary on the circular nature of time and inevitable repetition within human nature like we’ve seen in other readings this semester like Borges’. However, after getting through more of the novel it seemed like it was more about the influences of the outside civilization and the ailments that come with progress leaking into Macondo like we’ve seen happen with Western Nations leaking into Latin America. My question for discussion is how has “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez influenced your understanding of progress and change? Is the search for progress and improvement all that productive considering all of the unforeseen possible outcomes that may come as a result of it?

After getting a taste of the new tools and technologies brought to his village by gypsies José Arcadio Buendía learns there’s more to life and sets out in search of progress. It is this same journey that leads him into a life he into solitude. Reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude” felt like starting the journey of life in a very basic civilization. José Arcadio Buendía evolves as a kind of pioneer of Macondo but his obsession with ways to apply these new technologies and his solitude drives him into madness and various “advancements” made by others drive the town into conflict. The democratization of the town and the social constructs that come with organized religion struggle for power between Arcadio and Don Moscote seem to signal the beginning of many tragedies for various community members. The way the town evolves by the middle of the novel, resembles less of the simplicity, and becomes more familiar to society today; polluted by religion capitalism and war.

A recurring theme we’ve talked about throughout our course is time. This week’s reading like previous ones covered in the course (e.g., Mama Blanca’s memoirs and Pedro Paramo) follows a non-linear structure. The narration jumps through time, through frequent referencing of different periods it shows the reader the past, present, and future within a short period (i.e., it starts out in with a reference to the future killing of colonel Buendía, in the present then by the second chapter it moves back to the past). It also spans several generations of the Buendía family but doesn’t describe them in chronological order. I think this only adds to the difficultly of the reader to follow along. Not only are there many different characters intertwined with very similar names but it’s difficult to pinpoint when these events are taking place. The only thing that made it possible to gauge a sense of time was through the tools they had available or actual historical references that personally were unfamiliar without additional research. Even by looking at the tools It’s still confusing because the first mention of the magnifying glass and daguerreotype happen quite close together. We also see repeated elements of magical realism like borges, where Garcia Marquez blurs the line between fact and fiction, the real and the magical, making the mundane more interesting than it actually is. My question for discussion is; why do you think Garcia Marquez chooses to employ magical realism in their writing? What do it accomplish that say a more natural approach couldn’t?

Tag: 100 Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years II

Garcia Marquez 100 Years of Solitude