One Hundred Years of Solitude III

ashley8 said...
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.

August 16, 2008 6:21 PM